Newspaper owners and newspaper unions face tough choices this year. The Boston Globe is actively living out this downward spiral.
What’s better: take a 25% pay cut or lose your job?
Economics sucks because it doesn’t care about humans. If the paper can’t turn a profit because it spends too much money on the workforce, it can’t stay in business. If it can’t say in business, you don’t have a job anymore.
Concessions suck because it takes only a signature and a few hours to erase years of raises, vacation time, and job security. If times get better, and profit margins soar like they did in the 80′s and 90′s, the workers could be left behind.
Conflict costs money, too. Lawsuits mean lawyers, which means money, and time, distracting your from creating a killer news product.
Eat Sleep Publish is a Seattle-based blog that explores the difficulties and opportunities currently facing the publishing industry. 
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