Baltimore Sun Workers OK Contract

Members of the Sun’s newsroom union voted Tuesday to accept the newspaper’s final contract offer less than an hour before the previous contract expired, officials said.

The vote was 319-102 in favor, according to the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild. But the union issued a statement critical of the negotiations and the newspaper’s plans to publish in the event of a strike.

“The guild member employees of the Baltimore Sun accept this contract under bitter protest,” the statement said.

Charles Fancher, a spokesman for the Sun, said the paper was pleased with the vote.

“We were convinced that we had made a contract offer that was fair, that was equitable, that was the right thing for the future of the Baltimore Sun,” he said.

The Sun held to proposals of a one-year wage freeze, a new merit-pay plan and the flexibility to transfer workers to new jobs.

Fancher said employees would get a $24 weekly raise in the second year. In the third year, they would get a $10 raise, with $14 a week going into a merit-pay pool, and a $10 raise in the fourth year, with $15 going into the merit pool.

The Sun is owned by Chicago-based Tribune Co., which also owns the Los Angeles Times.