The Guild and fellow unions at the Albany Times Union met with management Monday to discuss a proposal to raise workers' health care costs by more than 30 percent, while the company's costs would rise less than 13 percent. Guild President Tim O’Brien told the company that it is difficult to ask members to pay a third more for health care when they have not had a raise in more than five years. Publisher George Hearst insisted those were separate issues. O'Brien tells members: “We will continue to do the research needed to get the fairest deal we can. We believe the proposal as it is is unacceptable, but we are glad to work with the other unions to try to find a solution.”

The three-month-old contract talks between the Guild and Sun-Times Media are "entering a crucial stage: discussion of pay, benefits and seniority rights," Crain's reports. The union represents about 150 reporters, copy editors and other editorial staff at the Sun-Times and some of its sister publications. They have been working under a pact reached in 2009 with the late James Tyree, who purchased the newspaper chain out of bankruptcy only after employees agreed to 15 percent pay cuts.  Chief among the union's demands is a restoration of prior pay levels and seniority rights that protect employees who have been at the company the longest if job cuts are required. Photo: Members of the Guild bargaining team.

Supporting the Guild's campaign to save daily publication of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Joe Eszterhas -- former Plain Dealer reporter, author and celebrity screenwriter of movies such as Basic Instinct, Flashdance and Jagged Edge -- colorfully remembers his time at the newspaper.