Detroit | Amid 'progress,' unions delay pact vote

The unions representing about 1,400 Detroit newspaper employees canceled yesterday's planned vote on a new contract, after reporting "significant progress" on talks over Gannett's demand for a 12% pay cut and other concessions.

"Instead," the Metropolitan Council of Newspaper Unions says in its latest update, "we intend to complete our work on tentative agreements and set a members’ meeting to vote on ratification of those tentative agreements on Sunday, Nov. 14."

The unions and Gannett negotiators had reached a stalemate two weeks ago over terms of a new three-year contract. In addition to the pay cut, GCI was seeking a two-year wage freeze, and potentially higher medical coverage costs, the labor groups say. The last contract expired Oct. 15, after reportedly being extended multiple times.

The negotiations cover about 1,400 employees of the GCI-owned Detroit Free Press; MediaNews Group's Detroit News, and the Detroit Media Partnership (DMP). The GCI-controlled DMP is a joint operating agency handling advertising, circulation and other business tasks for the two papers. The papers maintain separate, competitive newsrooms, however.

The talks come amid another recent drop in circulation at the Freep.

Weekday circulation plunged 9%, to 245,326, during the six months ended Sept. 30 from the same period a year before, new ABC figures out last week said. That was far worse than the average 5% decline for all dailies. Sunday, the most advertising-rich day of the week, was no better: The Freep's sales tumbled 11%, to 494,013, vs. an average 6.5%, according to the ABC.