By: Joe Strupp Newspaper Guild members at The Star Tribune in Minneapolis overwhelmingly approved a new three-year contract that includes a 16-month wage freeze, the paper reported.
Union members in the newsroom voted 210-to-27 on Wednesday in favor of the deal that editors say will save the paper $2.4 million annually. They also announced six newsroom jobs will be cut through buyouts.
"The deal includes ... three semiannual raises ranging from 1 to 1.5 percent," the paper reported. "It also shifts a greater share of health care costs to employees but maintains the company's pension plans."
"We're relieved the contract is settled and we can get back to journalism,'' Graydon Royce, co-chairman of the union's Star Tribune unit, told the paper. "The conditions of the industry and this company made it a tough process, but the committee feels strongly this deal is in our best interests and the best interests of the newspaper."
Nancy Barnes, the Star Tribune's editor and senior vice president, also supported the deal. "I am very glad we have a deal,'' Barnes said in a story. ''I want to thank the Guild members who worked on this with us under very stressful circumstances, and I am looking forward to putting this behind us and concentrating on journalism together.''
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