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The Star-Ledger, New Jersey's largest newspaper, has reached a deal with its unions ahead of Friday's deadline.

(Frances Micklow/The Star-Ledger)

By Ted Sherman and Kelly Heyboer/The Star-Ledger

NEWARK — The Star-Ledger reached a tentative agreement with its production unions Thursday night, averting a threatened shutdown of New Jersey's largest newspaper.

No details of the contracts with the four unions were released, but officials on both sides said they each made compromises. A union spokesman said the company got most of the $9 million in cost savings it was seeking.

Publisher Richard Vezza said the agreements were contingent on the ratification by the membership of each union.

“We’re happy we were able to achieve the savings necessary to warrant continued publication and to keep our newspaper’s important journalistic voice alive in New Jersey,” said Vezza.

Ed Shown, president of the Council of Star-Ledger Unions and head of Teamsters GCC Local 8-N, exhausted after two straight days of nearly around-the-clock talks, said they were happy the deal had been concluded.

"It’s been a long, tedious process. A lot of painful and hard decisions were made. But both sides had the ability to compromise and get the job done,” he said.

The unions are expected to meet next week to seek ratification of the new four-year contracts by their members.

The deal brought an end to a highly charged and often angry series of negotiations between the two sides, that began in the newspaper’s administrative offices earlier in the summer, and then shifted to two nearby hotels after several meetings erupted into shouting matches that echoed down hallways.

Details of the agreements were not divulged, but Shown said they include buyouts, wage freezes and other concessions, while the unions were able to lock in certain “quality of life” issues.

“A lot of hard decisions had to be made, but they got the savings they were looking for,” he said. “Not everyone is happy, but decisions had to be made. There were a lot of sacrifices.”

Shown praised both the union negotiators, as well as the Newhouse family, which owns the Star-Ledger “for allowing us to get a deal done.”

The contract dispute, which went on all summer, was a high-stakes drama for the newspaper, which faced a threat of closure by the end of the year had the unions not settled before a management-set deadline of Friday.

According to Vezza, The Star-Ledger lost $19 million last year and is on target to lose a similar amount this year. The continuing losses led to demands of $9 million in concessions from the unions—an amount based on what the paper determined it could save by outsourcing production—or The Star-Ledger would cease publication by the end of the year.

Two of the unions, the pressmen and the machinists, came to terms earlier in the week. But the mailers and engravers balked at some of the sizeable concessions the owners of the paper were seeking.

Late last night, James Reuter, recording secretary of Teamsters-New Jersey Mailers Local Union 1100, said the deal was finalized after two weeks of intense negotiations.

The mailers deal appeared to fall apart Wednesday night after the newspaper's negotiators rejected what the union said was its best offer. But newspaper officials and Steve Grant, the union's secretary-treasurer, were able to work out the framework of a final deal by phone Thursday morning, Reuter said. The two sides met in person to finalize the details in the afternoon.

Mailers handle the newspapers after they emerge from the presses, helping insert advertising supplements and preparing the papers to be loaded on delivery trucks.

Reuter stopped short of saying the mailers were happy with the deal.

"We had to give back stuff. But we're satisfied," Reuter said. "We look forward to many more productive years at The Star-Ledger."

The problems at the paper have not been unique to New Jersey. Newspapers across the country continue to struggle with drops in circulation and advertising revenue as more readers get their news via the internet. Earlier this year, The Star-Ledger eliminated 34 jobs, including reporters, photographers and editors, in its first ever large-scale layoff.

About 200 employees are represented by the four unions. The Star-Ledger’s newsroom, including about 160 reporters, editors and other staff, is not unionized.

The Star-Ledger, the winner of three Pulitzer Prizes, is New Jersey's largest daily newspaper. It has one of the largest Statehouse bureaus in the nation and has won numerous state and national awards for its reporting and investigations, including the New Jersey Press Association's general excellence award the last three years in a row.

The newspaper is part of Advance Publications, owned by the Newhouse family. The private company is not required to publicly disclose its earnings.

Several other Advance publications, including newspapers in Michigan, Louisiana and Oregon, have drastically reduced their staff, reduced the number of days they print or reorganized their companies to focus on their websites.

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