A tale of intrigue and resentment

It’s hard to imagine that members of the Boston Newspaper Guild won’t approve the deal offered by New York Times Co. management to keep the Boston Globe alive. But in today’s Boston Herald, Jessica Heslam tells a tale of intrigue and resentment so byzantine that it makes you wonder. Let’s just say this is unlikely to be a slam dunk.

Here’s the best part: among other things, some Guild members are upset that their leaders have been more forthcoming with their public-relations firm, O’Neill and Associates, than with the rank-and-file. And who speaks up on behalf of O’Neill? Cosmo Macero, former business editor of the Herald. Talk about what goes around.

The major parameters of the deal, according to Heslam’s piece and to Rob Gavin and Keith O’Brien’s story in the Globe, amount to an approximately 10 percent wage cut (8.3 percent plus five days of unpaid furlough) and an end to lifetime job guarantees for about 190 Guild members. As O’Brien and Steve Syre observe, the package could make the Globe more attractive to potential buyers.

As for the pain that lies ahead, the Herald’s Jay Fitzgerald takes a look at the San Francisco Chronicle, a paper similar to the Globe in circulation. Fitzgerald writes that the Chronicle is “now cutting about 150 jobs within its largest union alone, less than two months after it agreed to major contract revisions.”