Denver Post Workers OK Pay Cut, Freeze

DENVER — Employees of the financially pressed Denver Post have agreed to a 4% wage cut and 2 1/2-year salary freeze in exchange for a cap on the number of layoffs the newspaper’s new owner can make through 1990.

“Basically, this agreement has bought five years of labor peace so we can try to get this paper to work,” Bruce Meachum, administrative officer of Denver Newspaper Guild Local 74, said Tuesday.

The union agreed Saturday by a 141-15 vote to sacrifice a pay hike that went into effect Oct. 4 and to remain at the rolled-back wages until June, 1990, or earlier if the paper shows a profit over four consecutive quarters.

The Post’s new owner, MediaNews President William Dean Singleton, “told us he’d either have to have that money or do extra layoffs,” Meachum said.

Benefits Frozen Until 1992

Although wages will become negotiable in 2 1/2 years, benefits and all other aspects of the Oct. 4 contract will remain intact through Dec. 31, 1992.

Maurice (Moe) Hickey, the Post’s new editor and publisher, said Tuesday that only 20 of the paper’s 1,200 full-time employees will be laid off initially under the new agreement.

Hickey said the layoffs will affect 13 Guild employees and seven management-level employees.

“There is no reduction in the number of people in the newsroom,” Hickey said, explaining that the layoffs will affect non-editorial departments such as circulation.

Meachum said the new contract allows for a maximum of 30 layoffs through 1990, “unless the paper proves a drop in revenue.”

The contract includes “audit procedures” that will allow the Guild to monitor the paper’s gains or losses, Meachum said.

Economic Slump Felt

The Post and the area’s leading daily, the Rocky Mountain News, have been feeling the pinch of Denver’s economic slump since energy prices fell a few years ago. Advertising suffered as major department stores and other clients closed or trimmed their budgets.

MediaNews bought the Post from Times Mirror Co. for $95 million, taking control of the 93-year-old paper Dec. 1.

The Post has a weekday circulation of 229,731, with 415,250 on Sunday--the only day it surpasses the Rocky Mountain News. The News has 362,030 readers on weekdays and 402,991 on Sunday.

The Oct. 4 contract, which would have expired in September 1988, gave top-scale reporters with more than five years’ experience a $45-a-week raise, from $738 to $783. The latest agreement pushes those salaries back to $738 a week effective Jan. 1.

Pay Still Among Highest

Meachum said the salaries still keep the Post among the 15 highest-paying Guild newspapers in the country.

Hickey laughed off rumors of drastic changes at the Post circulating in the journalistic community.

“We’re planning to change the sports section from a tabloid to broadsheet to make it easier to find and easier to read,” the publisher said.

Hickey said the paper would also be using more color soon.