By MARC McDONALD
The New York Times Company, owner of The New York Times and The Boston Globe, has taken the gloves off (and put on a pair of brass knuckles) in hard-line negotiations with its unions. The company is threatening to close The Boston Globe unless the newspaper's unions quickly agree to $20 million in concessions, the Globe reported on Friday, quoting union leaders.
But while The New York Times Company is demanding that its employees make steep sacrifices, its CEO is raking in millions.
The New York Times Company CEO Janet L. Robinson raked in $5,578,451 in compensation for 2008. This includes $1,552,603 in restricted stock awards, as well as a salary of $1 million, according to Forbes.com.
Once again, America's CEOs pull down huge pay packages, even as they demand brutal sacrifices from their workforces across America.
You know, I expect this sort of thing from a hard-line, right-wing company like the Coors Brewing Company. But this is the "liberal" New York Times for Chrissakes. So much for the now-quaint notion that "The business of a newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."
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6 comments:
Buggy whips. Newspapers are no longer relevant. They need to adapt to new technologies or close. Neither outcome looks good for the workers. They obviously need to do some adapting as well. Or should I say retraining? There is no longer a market for what they offer so they should learn to offer something consumers are willing to pay for. Newspaper workers are doomed. Pay cuts today, elimination tomorrow. The wiser ones who do not refuse to see the writing on the wall will find other work before the crisis hits.
I used to know a dittohead who always referred to the NYTs as "Pravda." So, how come the workers in their unions don't just seize control of the company and put the execs in re-education camps? Just another one of those puzzles from the capitalist matrix.
re:
>>Newspapers are no longer
>>relevant.
I'm not sure I agree. Newspapers have faced new technologies before and overcome the challenges. TV news has been around for decades and yet it didn't put newspapers out of business.
I do agree that newspapers need to adapt to new technologies.
But the main reason U.S. newspapers are failing is that they have increasingly offered a mediocre product in recent years.
Too many shallow, Chicken McNugget, sensational, fluff pieces and not enough in-depth investigatives pieces.
Some commentators say that "Americans don't have the time to read" but I always thought that was bullshit. The fact is, Americans will MAKE time to read a newspaper if it has real news that is important to their lives.
Hard-hitting news about greedy CEOs and corporate welfare fit the bill. Fluff pieces about Paris Hilton don't.
U.S. newspapers also foolishly took on a lot of reckless debt in recent years. They can blame the Internet all they want, but the fact is, their problems are of their own making.
Incidentally, newspapers continue to thrive in many other nations. Japan, for example, still has a vibrant newspaper industry and many Japanese read at least two newspapers every day (this, in one of the world's most high-tech nations).
re:
>>>I used to know a dittohead who
>>>always referred to the NYT
>>>as "Pravda."
Actually, I know a lot of Dittoheads who regularly blast the NYT as "communist." But if you confront them with the latest news about the NYT screwing its unions, all you'll get in a vacant stare from these morons.
"So, how come the workers in their unions don't just seize control of the company and put the execs in re-education camps? Just another one of those puzzles from the capitalist matrix."
It is not a puzzle at all. Union workers want to get paid without any risk. Why would they take over? And union bosses are politicians not managers and certainly not journalists. Of course they would be more than happy to saddle the workers with all the risk while they assume none and take all the credit for anything positive. Isn't that what they do already?
It's not that I do not understand the tongue in cheek nature of your comment, but your truthful wish to stick it to the man at all cost is shining through. What if it costs you your livlihood? Will it still feel so good?
In response to the previous poster:
So you don't like unions. Sounds like your views were all spoon-fed to you by Rush and Fox, so I won't bother to try to change your brain-washed mind.
I will say this, though. Unions play a key role in the creation of the Great American Middle Class, which flourished from around the 1940s to the 1970s (the heyday of union power in the U.S.)
Now that unions have been severely weakened by hostile anti-labor legislation since the Reagan years, the middle class has been steadily shrinking.
We're getting close to the point of having a 19th Century style two class system in this country: the rich and the poor, with no middle at all.
I don't know if you Kool-Aid drinkers on the Right are even aware of all this, or if you care. But the fact is, the current direction of American society is clearly leading to a giant powder keg. It's quite a potentially explosive situation.
You Rush-Dittoheads dream of a union-free America where the corporations and the rich hold all the power and wealth. Be careful what you wish for, though. Because the whole thing could very well blow up in your face one of these days.
Don't say I didn't warn you. But history has shown, time and time again, that when the workers are impoverished, hungry and desperate, they'll eventually get out the pitchforks, the torches and the Molotov cocktails----and when that day happens, God help the rich, the powerful and their allies.
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