Newspaper Guild voices outrage over executive bonuses, other unions differ

Leaders of the Philadelphia Newspaper Guild say that they're outraged that top executives of the Inquirer and Daily News received significant year-end bonuses, three months after convincing hundreds of union members to give up a $25-a-week raise.

"At the time that we voted to postpone our raise, we thought it was the right thing to do," the Guild's administrative officer, Bill Ross, said yesterday. "Looking back, we have egg on our face."

Other union leaders said they had no problem with the bonuses.

Philadelphia magazine's Web site reported over the weekend that chief executive Brian P. Tierney received a $350,000 bonus, while Daily News publisher Mark Frisby and vice president of finance Richard Thayer received $150,000 each. Smaller amounts went to other managers.

Jay Devine, a spokesman for the newspaper company, declined yesterday to discuss compensation for any employees. But some details are likely to emerge next week, when the company is due to file a compensation report as part of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in federal court.

The Guild is the largest union at the newspapers, representing 565 reporters, editors and advertising salespeople.

But leaders of other newspaper unions defended the bonuses paid to Tierney and his team.

"I've seen other companies where management makes a lot more and does a lot less," said John Laigaie, president of Teamsters Local 628, which represents hundreds of delivery-truck drivers. "Though we were asked to give up the raise, we've had a pretty good run with these folk over the last few years. We've seen other papers with [union] members who no longer have jobs."

"These gentlemen . . . are underpaid, as far as I'm concerned," said Joseph M. Lyons, president of the Council of Newspaper Unions, including all 14 of the newspaper unions except the Guild. "I've got no regrets at all about trying to help the company by giving up that $25 increase."

The company filed for bankruptcy Feb. 22, seeking a way out from under nearly $400 million in debt.

Its initial filing disclosed that Tierney had received a $232,000 pay raise in December, stretching his pay to $850,000 annually. But the company's lead attorney, Lawrence McMichael, told the court that Tierney was voluntarily giving up the pay raise, pushing his salary back to $618,000 a year.

More than likely, Tierney would have had to give up the salary increase anyway. A local rule applicable to bankruptcy cases normally limits executive compensation to whatever executives were receiving 90 days before the bankruptcy filing - in this case, late November.

One of the company's attorneys, Anne Aaronson, said that she was preparing a document describing those late-November compensation levels for submission to the court next week. *