April 24, 2009

New organization begins July 1
NEPA OKs merger with NENA

By Jennifer Skala
Bulletin Staff

It’s official. The New England Press Association and the New England Newspaper Association will merge to form one organization this summer.

NEPA members voted 309-2 to approve the merger, through mailed proxy ballots and votes at a meeting April 16 meeting in the office of Prince, Lobel, Glovsky & Tye LLP of Boston. The merger needed to be approved by two-third of those members eligible to vote, or 268 votes, to be approved.

“This vote represents the culmination of more than two years’ worth of meetings, discussions and hard work by the NEPA and NENA teams,” Brenda Reed, executive director of NEPA, told the e-Bulletin. MORE>

Talks labor on with
Globe’s largest union to avert threatened shutdown

Talks are scheduled to continue between The Boston Globe and its largest employee union past the May 1 deadline set by the Globe’s parent either to get $20 million in concessions from that union and others or close the Globe.

Globe management said May 4 that the company would not file immediately a plant-closing notice required to shutter the paper. By law, companies must give a 60-day notice to the state and employees before closing.

The Boston Herald reported that management reached agreement on concessions with six of the paper’s seven major unions during all-night negotiating sessions May 3. Talks began that morning in hopes of meeting the extended deadline of midnight that night. The May 1 deadline had been extended to May 3 as both parties saw progress in talks about the concessions.

Officials from the Globe’s largest union, the Boston Newspaper Guild, left the talks on the morning of May 4 without an agreement, however, the Globe reported.

Published reports said the sticking point with the Guild is a concession sought by The New York Times Co. to end lifetime job guarantees held by 190 of the Guild’s more than 600 members.

The threatened closing of The Boston Globe by its parent has sparked speculation about whether its unions will concede the $20 million demanded of them to keep the Globe open and about prospective buyers who might spare the Globe’s closing by buying it.

The threat by The New York Times Co. also reinforced just how far the 137-year-old Globe has fallen — in market value, revenue, circulation, and staffing — from peak levels as New England’s premier newspaper.

And the threat has worsened an in-company dynamic at a newspaper that has lost, just in this decade, hundreds of jobs, tens of thousands in circulation, and an estimated $245 million in annual revenue. MORE>

Just Design
Ways to work smarter when forced to work smaller
Ed Henninger

Writing
Guard against government waste emerging from slop
Jim Stasiowski

Ad-libs
Set aside self-interest to be a better salesperson
John Foust