Globe union vote: heart or head?

My former colleagues at the Boston Globe face an impossible choice today: Vote yes on the proposed contract with the New York Times and take a crippling ten percent wage cut or vote no and perhaps face an unimaginable 23 percent pay cut. I don’t envy them. A yes vote will save the paper and jobs, at least temporarily. A no vote goes out on a limb that the Times will go back to the negotiating table. Some say the possibility of reopening negotiations is as likely an blizzard in the Sahara.

The voices of those voting no have been well-represented. This from the report in today’s Times:

“People understand that things are going horrendously, the paper is losing money and there have to be concessions, but people don’t feel that the company tried very hard to make the concessions more palatable or equitable,” said Scott Allen, a Globe reporter. “I’m voting no. Even people who you would think can’t afford to put their mortgages at risk are voting no.”

via Boston Globe Employees to Vote on Cutbacks – NYTimes.com.

However, there is no quote from anyone who is voting yes. I got this email from a friend who sees things differently. This well-respected journalist is one of those can’t afford to put the mortgage at risk. My friend has taken a clear-eyed look at the industry as well as the history of labor negotiations with the Times and is voting yes. These thoughts bear consideration and should have been reported today.

Many people who are going to be royally screwed by this are voting no because they think it’s the right way to show dissatisfaction with the perceived inequity between management and workers. They’re thinking with their hearts and not their heads. A “no” vote is the equivalent of a toddler stamping his feet and wailing “That’s not fair.” There’s no way the company is going to give into that, especially since all the other unions accepted terms equally onerous, if not moreso.

Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. And here’s my friend’s coda, sad but true: “It’s an utter shitstorm.”