Boston Globe rejects cuts

My experience with Guild votes is that the worst result is to wind up with a close vote. As in, a narrow margin.

Managements take that as a sign of a split within the ranks and will try to exploit one side or the other. In this case, for example, I could see the Times telling all those under 50 and under whatever salary threshold might be targeted that "the old creeps sucking up the bigger paychecks are to blame for this 23 percent pay cut." And even though the grunts would know that, no, Times management is to blame for the pay cut, it might get some traction with that claim.

That said, if a company bargains itself into giving "lifetime job guarantees," then it has to live with that. For those union members' professional lifetimes. Either that or go out of business completely. Because anything short of that will be viewed with great cynicism, that shedding the "guarantees" was the difference between survival and boarding up the joint. Assuming the Globe stays in business, and has 190 employees or more going forward, those 190 need to be the ones with the "lifetime" jobs. Retrain 'em, redeploy 'em, whatever it takes.

What is it about "lifetime" that the Times doesn't understand?

 

To me, that means there are 140 people who can't bitch about the outcome.

 

It went to the NLRB today.

 

Hell, it didn't even start well.

 

Regarding CNHI: What does 23 percent of jackshit equate? Can't be much.

 

I would have voted no, because I have a hard time believing that crushing the pay of its already-low-paid employees is the "only financially viable option" for a multimillion-dollar corporation that I'm assuming is still profitable. Maybe I'm a moron, but I'm just not buying that. I want to see the cards on the table.

 

Crap-and-a-half

 

I do not believe anyone at the Globe could have been considered "already-low-paid" before these cuts went in. The end of the lifetime guarantees are an enormous issue that might have been the true reason for the outcome of the vote. But as to the pay cut, 8.4 percent would have left all of those employees with very good incomes relative to both the journalism world and the rest of the nation's workforce.

 

How much does the average Globe employee make?

 

23 percent of Jackshit is ckshit. Maybe ck is short for chicken.

 

Most of the nation, except parts of the coasts and Chicago, doesn't have Boston's cost of living.

Just because the numbers are bigger doesn't necessarily mean they're getting paid well, relative to where they are.

I'm getting paid almost twice as much as I did at my hometown paper, four years ago. Doesn't mean I can afford a much better standard of living, where I'm at now. It just costs a lot more to live here, thus the number is a lot higher.

 

Cost-of-living issues: Well, duh. I live in California. I'm kind of familiar with that.

Anyone with knowledge to the contrary, please steer me right, because I'm just taking my best guess based on what I know of pay scales around the country. With the Globe's status as a destination paper and the way longtime employees have been treated and compensated up until the last 2-3 years, I would wager that many are making six figures (some clearing that number by tens of thousands of dollars) and almost all are making at least $80,000. Again, just a guess on my part, but I would imagine that's what it took to lure someone from a mid-major a decade ago. So 8.4 percent less would have represented a still meaningful income.