La Presse deal may prevent closure

The death of North America's largest French-language broadsheet newspaper may have been averted with the announcement that Montreal's La Presse has reached an agreement in principle with another three of the eight unions representing its employees.

The 125-year-old French-language newspaper had threatened to shut its doors on Dec. 1 without concessions from its workers, but now appears to have settled with seven unions.

La Presse said in a statement Friday it had reached a tentative deal with editorial and office employees.

Union officials said they had made a variety of concessions, including ending their four-day work week and replacing it with a standard five-day week. There are also changes to insurance benefits, the retirement plan and the holiday schedule. La Presse employees will not see their salaries reduced.

"We won't say we're satisfied because these are enormous concessions that have been made by La Presse employees, to save La Presse," said union spokesman Rudy Le Cours.

He added he doesn't believe management is looking to close the paper.

"These are also their jobs in play. We're all hoping for La Presse's survival. This is an institution that has existed for 125 years and we're all attached to it."

Workers are expected to vote on the agreement next week.

The newspaper wins frequent praise from within the industry and from media observers for the depth of its coverage, from international issues to municipal politics where it played a key role this year in breaking details of Montreal's construction scandal.

But publisher Guy Crevier had declared this summer that the paper would not survive without a variety of concessions.

Le Cours says the concessions made so far would shave $10 million from the paper's budget almost all the $13 million Crevier was looking to save.

The paper announced last month it had reached an agreement with four other unions, representing one-third of its employees.

La Presse was negotiating Friday afternoon with one final union the one representing its distribution employees.

The paper is owned by Gesca Ltee, a wholly owned division of Power Corp.