Newspaper’s Workers Vote on Contract

Newspaper workers began voting on a contract offer from the Seattle Times that could end their 48-day-old strike. Union leaders recommended that their members vote in favor of the settlement reached last week, saying it wasn’t everything they wanted but was the best they could do. The pact offers $3.30 an hour in raises over its six-year span. Members of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, which represents about 870 workers at the state’s largest daily, had until 5 p.m. today to vote. Results were to be announced tonight. Santi Alston, a news assistant for the paper’s Web site, said that when a tentative agreement was announced last week, “I kind of assumed it would be over. But the more I talk to people, it’s not clear it’s going to pass.” The Times agreed to increase its share of health insurance payments, raise wages for some lower-paid job classifications and amend an advertising commission proposal. The paper also agreed that within three years, not six, it would eliminate a two-tier system that pays suburban reporters and photographers less than their downtown counterparts.