Sunday, May 03, 2009

Last Rites for the Boston Globe?

The countdown is on for the employees and unions at the Boston Globe to accept $20 million in concessions as demanded by the New York Times Co., otherwise it's the end of days for that newspaper.
With a midnight deadline looming that could determine the future of the Boston Globe, the newspaper's largest union said it has offered cuts in wages and benefits that "should be more than adequate" to meet the demands of the New York Times. Co., which has threatened to shutter the paper unless it gains millions of dollars in concessions from its unions.

The Times Co. is seeking $10 million from the Boston Newspaper Guild, which represents more than 600 editorial, advertising, and business office workers - half the $20 million the company is seeking from all the paper's unions.

Yesterday, Teamsters Local 259, which represents more than 200 drivers who deliver the paper, said it has offered enough concessions to meet the Times' demand for $2.5 milion from its members.
Meanwhile, some can barely contain their glee.

The honorable Reverend Carr is already presiding over the rituals.
I know, they can’t brag enough about their Pulitzer prizes, like they’re on the level or something. Seriously, the limousine liberals who pass the Politically Correct Pulitzers around among themselves every spring ought to rename them the Olbermanns and run the awards ceremony live on MSNBC. Truth in advertising.

I’m sure Pinch Sulzberger this weekend is fielding phone calls from his Park Avenue squash partners, the Beautiful People who’ve been pulling strings over the last decade or so to line up no-work sinecures at the Globe for their shiftless offspring.

Belatedly, the Globe has been trying to present as its public face the salt-of-the-earth types in the backshop, guys who live in towns like Weymouth and went to work at the paper out of high school.

These are the same blue-collar Massachusetts natives that the bow-tied bumkissers upstairs alternately disdain or despise as mean-spirited bigots who can’t be trusted to vote the “right way.”

Outside the employees themselves and a few limp bloggers, nobody cares about the Globe’s demise. Let the epitaph be: Smug Is Not a Workable Business Plan. These pampered poodles assumed they had a monopoly. Nobody ever has a monopoly, at least not for long.

I’ll miss the old Globe. It was a laff-riot - remember in 2006 when its crack sports columnist previewed the Final Four matchup between George Mason and LSU, except there was no such game. They were in opposite brackets.

One last thing to all my dear friends on the Boulevard.

We’re not hiring.

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