NYT's Boston Globe hangs between life and death

04 May 2009

Talks between The Boston Globe and its unions to prevent the well-known US newspaper from shutting shop continue to hang fire despite a marathon brainstorming session on Sunday night that ran well into Monday morning. While no official word was available, it is likely that the discussions will continue.

Parent company The New York Times has reportedly ratcheted up the pressure on unions, threatening to close the paper within weeks if they do not deliver big cost cuts. The NYT has said it will file a notice with the US government on Monday to shut down the paper if it cannot get millions of dollars in concessions from its unions.

It had set a Sunday midnight deadline for four unions to enable $20 million in cost cuts at the Globe. Earlier it had set Friday as the deadline, but extended it after reporting Saturday that it had made progress.

If the Globe's management and the unions fail to reach an agreement, one of the most well known and largest US newspapers could close, leaving Boston without a daily, full-service general newspaper of comparable size.

The 137-year-old Globe is the seventeenth-largest newspaper in the United States by daily paid circulation, according to the US Audit Bureau of Circulation. On Sundays, it ranked thirteenth.

The Times has threatened to file a notice under the workers readjustment and retraining notification act, which requires 60 days advance notice before closing a business. This is the hardest pressure that the NYT has so far applied on the unions.