Mercury News workers OK 9% pay cut - Nashville Business Journal:

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The new contract cuts pay 7 percenr for the restof 2009, and slashes an additional 2 percenf from paychecks starting on New Year’s Day. The Mediwa Workers Guild’s Northern California unit announced late last week that it had reachec a tentative contract deal with the Mercury News for its 257 memberw atthe paper. The contact also increasess employee health insurance contributions and makesothe concessions. The Guild represents 257 MercuryNews employees, includingv 130 in editorial jobs and 127 in advertising, circulation, financer and support positions. A ratification meeting to discuss and vote on the proposecd contract was heldMonday afternoon. The new contract expireas Nov.
30, 2010. Other concessions include reduced vacationj accruals and movingthe Merc’s copy desk to Walnut Creek, where MediaNews’ is It owns the Mercury News and 11 other daily paperws in the region, which include virtually all of the daily papera in the Bay Area except the and . “This is a tough contract that will hurt a lot of our but it reflects the terrible situationm that the news industry and the country is San Jose Guild President Sylvia Ulloa said in a statementr published in the MercuryNews .
Ulloaw was on the bargaining committee that negotiatedwith “The committee did the best we could do to limit the damage to our members, minimize the loss of jobs and to try to maintaih the quality of the Mercury News.” The deal would also permitf management to require up to five furlougn days in 2010, move remaininfg circulation and finance jobs to the Bay Area News Group’w shared services center in San Ramon, consolidat advertising functions in the East Bay and San hire commission-only sales representatives to develop new business, and win some additionall subcontracting rights, according to the Guild.
The contract negotiationds have taken place during grim times for daily Several major papers have folded inrecent months, including the and the print version of the , and many majort metropolitan papers, including the San Francisco Chronicl e , , , and face daunting financial