Times Co. Gives Globe Weekend to OK $20M Cuts

But accounting error further infuriates staffers

By Wesley Oliver, Newser Staff

Posted May 2, 2009 3:34 PM CDT

(Newser) – The Boston Globe will live to print another edition, now that the New York Times Company has extended its deadline to midnight tomorrow, the Globe reports. Marathon negotiations continued after last night’s deadline, when the Times Co. granted the eleventh-hour reprieve for the paper’s unions to approve $20 million in concessions. But an accounting error has further soured employee morale.

Management’s inclusion of 80 former employees in its calculus of potential concessions caused a $4.5 million blunder, prompting union members to cry foul in radio ads. “Everybody’s so suspicious of the Times,” a Globe source told cross-town rival the Boston Herald. “We can’t figure out what the endgame is.” But the gaffe has united employees "as we absorb this shocking development," said one Globe reporter.

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A front page news brief highlights the deadline for reaching an agreement on $20 million in concessions from the unions at The Boston Globe Friday, May 1, 2009. (AP Photo/Bill Sikes)

Employees of The Boston Globe, Dorothy Harris, left, and Michelle Bezanson, right, display signs and chant at a rally held to help save the paper, in Boston. (AP Photo/Lisa Poole)

Kathie Dalton, of Quincy, Mass., left, and Patrice Sneyd, of Weymouth, Mass., right, an employee of The Boston Globe, hoist a sign in front of Boston's Faneuil Hall. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

A copy of the Boston Globe is seen after a home delivery in North Andover, Mass. Thursday, April 30, 2009. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

The facade of The Boston Globe building is seen in Boston Thursday, April 30, 2009. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

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You get here right out of high school, come into the union with good benefits. It's the American dream, have everything, be middle class. To have all that taken away at the ripe old age of 40 would be a scary situation. - Bobby Gott, Globe employee

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Times Co. Gives Globe Weekend to OK $20M Cuts