The proposed guild member contract is a four-year accord retroactive to January 1, 2006.  The agreement was provisionally approved last month, but requires a full vote in the coming week.  Although the contract promises a 2007 bonus and salary increases every six months, these perks are only offered if the Boston Globe print newspaper is profitable.  Without the added cushion of Boston.com, it seems highly likely that there will be no pay increases at all with this new contract.

States the petition: "As journalists who contribute, with enthusiasm and energy and skill, to Boston.com in a variety of ways, we are writing to express our strong concern about the company's proposal to exclude us from sharing in the success of that part of our company's operation.  We believe that this proposal is indefensible at a time when we are pursuing full integration of our print and online news operations."

"It seems to fly in the face of basic fairness," says cartoonist Dan Wasserman.

A spokesman for the New York Times Company admitted that the New York Times had no similar clause in its employee contract.

In a time when journalists and editors are being called upon to go above and beyond their traditional duties, shouldn’t they be compensated accordingly?

Source: Editor and Publisher