Members of the Newspaper Guild at the Boston Globe voted last night to reject a proposed wage and benefit cut, the New York Times reported. Parent company The New York Times Company will now institute a unilateral 23 percent salary cut.

Members of the Guild are hopeful that negotiations will resume. Daniel Totten, the Boston guild’s president, told reporters:
“With today’s vote, members of the Boston Newspaper Guild have said that the New York Times Company must do better. Boston Newspaper Guild is committed to resuming good-faith negotiations.”

Those who voted against the package believed that they could get a better deal out of the Times Company. Many opponents of the package believed that the 23 percent pay cut was a bluff.

The reporters and editors who voted for the cut found the 23 percent cut unpalatable. “I can’t afford to gamble with a quarter of my pay,” reporter Donovan Slack told the NYT. “How can I pay my mortgage?”

The fight is raging on between Boston Globe unions and the New York Times Co., who threatened to shutter the Globe unless its unions agree to $20 million in concessions.

Boston unions must have a different way of doing business than New York. The Guild has been pushing NYT Co. to hold publicly negotiations regarding union concessions&#151some of which include pay cuts, the end of pension contributions by the company and the elimination of lifetime job guarantees for veteran employees&#151but the New York company has simply refused.

“We’re disappointed,” Boston Newspaper Guild president Daniel Totten told the Globe “The future of the Boston Globe and its mission of journalism and free speech is a matter of vital public interest. The Guild had hoped that these negotiations could be conducted in as transparent a way as possible.”

The Globe says it is prepared to start making concessions, after a strategic earnings call with NYT Co. analysts yesterday brought to their attention that union concessions were the key to saving the paper. The Globe did start a petition yesterday that asked management to “fully share the burden” of cost-cutting. Sounds like some big wigs are going to have their salaries slashed this year!