The financially-ailing Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has reached tentative contracts with bargaining units from its 11 different labour unions, lifting a cloud of uncertainty surrounding the future of the 220-year-old daily, the newspaper reported.
Votes on the three-year contracts, which would run from January 2007 to March 2010, will take place in the next two weeks, said Newspaper Guild President Mike Bucsko.
Both sides declined to release terms, but a press release from the unions cited "enormous financial sacrifices." Leaders representing the paper's 1,042 unionised employees had previously said that they expected job reductions and changes in work rules.
"When we entered these negotiations, we were cognizant of the Post-Gazette's difficult financial situation and were determined to assist as much as possible in placing the newspaper on sound financial footing," said the Pittsburgh Newspaper Unions Unity Council, which represents the 11 unions.
The Post-Gazette has projected a $20 million loss for 2006 and is battling "flat circulation, declining advertising revenue, high costs and competition from other media," said President David Beihoff.
"These agreements are a collaborative effort by management and the unions to ensure the financial viability of the Post-Gazette," Beihoff said. "If ratified, the agreements would begin to achieve realistic savings and efficiencies while enabling the Post-Gazette to continue its 220-year tradition of producing a trusted, high-quality news product.''
The newspaper reported in Octoberlast that its daily circulation in the previous six months had fallen from 230,887 to 212,075, and its Sunday circulation declined from more than 382,000 to just under 355,000. The circulation at the Post-Gazette fell 8.1 per cent in the six months between March and September of 2006, compared to a national average decline of 2.8 per cent.
The newspaper industry's troubles, due in part to free content on the Internet that is attracting growing numbers of readers as well as advertisers, prompted the June sale of Knight-Ridder, the second largest newspaper chain in the US, after profits failed to satisfy investors.
Five months later, bids submitted for the Tribune Co, whose holdings include the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, came in far below what the company had expected when it tested the waters and put those papers up for sale. It is continuing to seek and review offers.
In recent years, family newspapers in cities such as Los Angeles and St Louis have been sold to out-of-state owners.
The Block family has published the Post-Gazette since 1927, but said in a letter to the unions in August 2006 that it was prepared to sell the paper if new labour contracts did not produce significant cost savings. The family also owns the Toledo Blade, where labour contract negotiations are deadlocked and management has locked out about 220 of its 600 union workers.
In this climate, a newspaper that remains under family ownership "is really significant," Ronald E Yates, dean of the College of Communications at the University of Illinois told the Post-Gazette. "There are only about 200 left in the entire country."
In its statement, the newspaper's unity council indirectly acknowledged the benefits of family ownership under the Block family and paid homage to its former publisher, the late William Block Sr, who died in 2005 at age 89.
"The employees at the Post-Gazette and their union leadership have never forgotten that 15 years ago after a prolonged labour dispute, the late William Block Sr, then chairman of the Post-Gazette, rescued hundreds of union employees and preserved vital newspaper jobs to make the Post-Gazette the leading voice in news in southwestern Pennsylvania,'' the unity council said. "Our efforts ... in reaching agreement with the Post-Gazette are a token of our appreciation and the deep respect we all have for the late William Block and the Block family.''
