Globe execs land millions while seeking major union cutbacks

On top of the Globe

By Christine McConville   |   Wednesday, April 8, 2009  

Ready to make sacrifices?: Top New York Times and Boston Globe executives continue to rake in multimillion dollar salaries and perks as the companys share price tanks and the Globe faces a closure threat.

Top executives at the New York Times Co. and The Boston Globe were awarded stock options potentially worth millions just weeks before they told the Globes unions to cut $20 million or face closure, according to regulatory filings.

As Globe workers braced for another round of newsroom cuts in late February, the beleaguered broadsheet?s publisher P. Steven Ainsley, who made $1.9 million in 2008, was awarded options to buy 90,000 shares at $3.625 each. The options vest over three years and would include an additional cash payout in 2012.

Times CEO Janet Robinson and Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. each were awarded 500,000 stock options at $3.625 plus a cash payout equal to 50,000 shares in 2012.

The only way the executives won?t get big payoffs is if Times share prices drop below $3.625 - just off their historic low - and stay there. For example, if the options vested yesterday, when the stock closed at $4.83, Robinson and Sulzberger would get $600,000 from their options and Ainsley?s would be worth $108,000.

The stock option awards come on top of Robinson?s total 2008 compensation of $5.6 million and Sulzberger?s $2.4 million in 2008 pay. The pay includes $38,000 and $35,000 bonuses, respectively, in a year when share prices dropped 60 percent.

?That?s disgusting,? said one Globe staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Times Co. is seeking pay cuts, the elimination of lifetime job guarantees for hundreds of workers and reduced pension and health-care contributions.

In a memo to Globe employees this week, Ainsley said that, to survive, the paper ?will need significant concessions from labor.?

Ainsley, who received $247,896 in relocation expenses to move from Tampa, Fla., to a $2.4 million Wellesley manse in 2006, also said in the memo: ?It is only fair that management also be prepared to make sacrifices.?

Despite Times Co.?s 60 percent share price drop in 2008, which has continued this year, the company continues to dole out multimillion-dollar executive salaries, bonus awards and perks.

Last year, the company paid former International Herald Tribune Publisher Michael Golden $106,461 to relocate from Paris to Manhattan. That relocation fee is in addition to the $1.6 million that Golden, a member of the family that owns the Times, was paid in 2008.

In his memo to Globe employees, Ainsley said the company, which the Herald learned is raising newsstand rates next month, has ?a strategy in motion which will bring in additional revenue from consumers and advertisers.?

Edward Atorino, a media analyst with Benchmark Company, said he?s sure the Times will try all sorts of new concepts.

?I?m sure they are rolling out everything they can,? he said.

But financial analyst Douglas McIntyre, editor of the blog 24/7 Wall Street, scoffed at that.

?If they had these kinds of miracle cures, why are they still having problems?? he asked.

To McIntyre, it sounds like the company is saying ?whatever it can, to coax as many concessions as possible out of the unions.?

?Their interest is in getting the union to drop all the provisions in its contracts, because then they can operate the paper at will, which they can?t do now,? he said.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/media/view.bg?articleid=1164233