• The Boston Globe, Friday, April 10, 2009 11 AM

Newspaper owners across the country are using dire warnings and, in some cases, blunt threats about economic survival to press organized labor to make concessions on wages, benefits, and work rules. And it's working.

Union workers at the San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe and Seattle Times are all facing pay, vacation and other concessions. Threatening to shutter businesses is an old negotiating tactic. It was used frequently in New England in the 20th century as traditional manufacturers were moving operations, says Robert Forrant, University of Massachusetts professor. But after unions made concessions, plants ended up closing anyway.

The problem is that concessions don't address the underlying problems driving the industries' decline, Forrant says. "You give back wages, and the structural problems remain."

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