Guild employees at The Times OK contract calling for wage freeze

Members of the largest union at The Seattle Times have approved a new two-year contract with the newspaper that calls for no across-the-board wage increases.

Vote totals were not released, but more than one-third of those who cast ballots voted no, said Liz Brown, administrative officer for the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild. Voting was conducted Wednesday and Thursday.

"I think people recognize the unfortunate situation with the company's [financial] losses," Brown said. But Brown said many members also were angry or disappointed with what she described as The Times' hostile attitude toward the union during negotiations.

Union negotiators said in a blog posting Thursday night that they recommended approval reluctantly, because "the time is not right for a labor battle."

Times spokeswoman Jill Mackie said the substantial "no" vote wasn't surprising: "We knew this was a very difficult vote for people to take," she said.

Times President Carolyn Kelly said in a prepared statement that, by accepting the two-year wage freeze, Guild members were joining other employees "in making a critical investment in our collective future."

During negotiations, The Times argued that the wage freeze was necessary because it had lost money each year between 2000-05. It took the unusual step of allowing a Guild economist to review some company financial records.

The Guild said those documents confirmed that the paper, when one-time gains from property sales are excluded, had lost millions over the past six years.

The Guild represents more than 600 Times newsroom, advertising, circulation, marketing and composing employees, about half the union workers at the paper. Nearly half participated in the vote on the new contract, which takes effect next Friday, Brown said.

Other unions representing about 400 Times production and sales workers have agreed previously to similar two-year contracts with no across-the-board raises.

The Times has blamed its economic woes in large part on its 23-year-old joint operating agreement (JOA) with The Hearst Corp., owner of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Under the JOA, the papers maintain separate news and editorial operations while The Times handles the business side for both.

The Times is seeking to end the arrangement, or get Hearst to close the P-I, or both. Hearst is resisting.

After three years of battling in court, the two companies agreed earlier this year to submit their dispute to binding arbitration. The arbitrator is expected to rule by June, and Hearst and The Times have agreed there will be no appeal.

That means the JOA dispute likely will be resolved before The Times and the Guild begin negotiating a new contract in 2008. Brown said union negotiators will be seeking not only wage increases then, but respect.

"I think people feel like the company has come to the well again and again, and people are getting fed up with it," she said.

She said Times negotiators dragged out bargaining and increased tensions by advancing proposals she characterized as "hostile," such as a plan, ultimately withdrawn, to exempt up to 20 percent of employees in Guild jobs from dues-paying union membership.

Mackie denied Times negotiators were hostile. She said the company would have asked for more concessions from the union, in areas such as health-care costs, were it not seeking the wage freeze.

She wouldn't speculate about contract negotiations in 2008, "because we don't know what our financial situation will be ... the best assurance of good wages in the future is a financially strong Seattle Times."

Guild President Yoko Kuramoto-Eidsmoe said only one member of the nine-person bargaining team urged a "no" vote at informational meetings Wednesday and Thursday.