PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- The largest union at Philadelphia's two biggest newspapers said late Thursday that it would continue negotiations Friday, past a midnight strike deadline, with both sides reporting good progress in negotiations.þþRepresentatives of The Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia and management said they were working to reach an accord on company proposals to freeze the pension and discard seniority of workers when it comes to layoffs.þþ''We still have a lot of work to do,'' Guild President Henry Holcomb said.þþHolcomb said the Guild will be looking at the company's proposal early Friday and hopes to have a response ready by midday. He also said contract talks may extend for a second day.þþ''We are all working hard and I believe that a great deal of progress is being made,'' Brian Tierney, chief executive of the papers' owner, Philadelphia Media Holdings, said in a statement.þþThe Guild, representing more than 900 editorial, circulation and clerical workers, resumed negotiations with management on the same day it learned that the newspaper's other unions had agreed to a weeklong contract extension and were unlikely to honor picket lines.þþEarlier in the day, Guild members picked up their picketing assignments even as other unions expressed eagerness to avoid what they said would be a costly strike.þþIf a walkout occurred, the Guild learned it would not have the official support of the papers' nine other unions, which extended talks until 12:01 a.m. Dec. 9. Eight of those unions have reached tentative agreements on non-economic issues with management and the ninth was expected to do so by early next week.þþ''We think a strike is really going to hurt us,'' said Joe Lyons, president of the Philadelphia Council of Newspaper Unions, which represents all unions but the Guild. ''We're going to go to work.''þþAsked if that means Teamster drivers, pressmen and other production workers would cross picket lines, Lyons said: ''If we have to, we will.''þþThe newspapers were long part of Knight Ridder Inc., which was sold in March to McClatchy Co. McClatchy sold the Philadelphia papers three months later to Philadelphia Media Holdings, an investment group led by Tierney, a former public relations executive who is now the papers' chief executive, in a deal worth $562 million.þþLast month, Tierney announced that declining ad revenues would require contract concessions and that layoffs were unavoidable. The top editor has also since been replaced.þþCirculation has been on a sharp decline, with weekday figures at the Inquirer down 7.6 percent to nearly 331,000 in the six months ended Sept. 30.þþThe owners and the Guild have clashed over management's proposal to freeze and take over the pension, cut sick pay benefits and disregard seniority when it comes to layoffs.þþThe last walkout at the newspapers was a 46-day strike in 1985.þþThe Guild said it prepared about 3,000 signs and was prepared to take up positions in shifts at the papers' headquarters in downtown Philadelphia, the printing plant in Conshohocken, Pa. and editorial offices in Cherry Hill, N.J.þþGuild leaders said employees who cross picket lines cannot look forward to friendly relations with striking co-workers. They'll also be breaking a long Philadelphia tradition.þþIf the Guild does go on strike, the support of the other unions would be critical, notably that of drivers who could disrupt newspaper distribution even if management publishes papers.þþ''So much of what produces a newspaper has become automated,'' said newspaper analyst John Morton. ''The thing that would interfere with that is distributorship.''þþDuring a strike, Guild members said they would contribute to an online news site, www.PhilaPapers.com, that would compete with the company-owned Web site, www.Philly.com.þþAnalysts said a strike would hurt both the company, which would suffer declines in advertising revenue and circulation, and employees, who risk losing their jobs or having to accept lower wages.þþEmployees have not fared well in recent strikes at other major newspapers.þþArguably the most bitter newspaper strike occurred at the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News and lasted 19 months. When it ended in 1997, circulation and wages fell. The strike cost the papers $300 million, mostly due to hiring of replacement workers and lost ad revenue.þþ''The unions struck and basically overnight the owners were able to achieve staff reductions that would have taken them years to negotiate,'' Morton said.þþMorton said he is not so sure that Philadelphia Media Holdings was as well-prepared as the owners of the Detroit papers.þþ''Management is not as well-equipped to pull it off,'' he said. ''These guys haven't run newspapers before, so who knows how that might turn out?''þþ
Source: NY Times
