[AP] A hometown investor has offered the unions at the Chicago Sun-Times a take-it-or-leave-it proposal to buy the company in bankruptcy court, and the unions just might leave it -- snuffing out what could be the best hope for survival of the city's oldest continuously published daily.There's no line of eager buyers at the Sun-Times' door. And it seems unlikely parent company Sun-Times Media Group could do much to woo other investors in an era of free Internet news that has already seen the demise of other second newspapers in two-newspaper towns such as Seattle and Denver.
Businessman Jim Tyree's bid for the Sun-Times Media Group "seems to be the only game in town," said Michael Miner, a former Sun-Times staffer who covers local journalism for the Chicago Reader, a free weekly. If Tyree walks away, a Sun-Times lawyer has said, the company would have to consider liquidation.
Tyree, who grew up on Chicago's South Side and now heads Mesirow Financial, a financial services firm, leads a group that has offered to pay just $5 million in cash for the assets of the Sun-Times' parent company, which also runs more than 50 suburban publications. The investors also would assume about $22 million in liabilities to keep operating the company.
First, however, Tyree wants Sun-Times unions to agree to lock in 15 percent pay cuts that were originally intended to be temporary, among other concessions. Five Sun-Times unions have rejected the concessions, four have accepted them and seven have not yet voted, Sun-Times spokeswoman Tammy Chase said. "The business is in trouble, it needs to transform itself . . . therefore the concessions are essential for it to survive," Tyree said in an interview.
Tyree also wants members of the Chicago Newspaper Guild to agree to flexible work rules. That proposal "guts our contract," complained Tom Thibeault, executive director of the Guild, which represents editorial workers at the Sun-Times newspapers. "We hold on to the front cover and the back cover -- and everything else goes out the door."
A judge last week rejected Tyree's efforts to set Tuesday as a deadline for the unions to agree to the demands, suggesting that the parties should have until December to seal any agreement. But both Tyree and Sun-Times Media Group executives warn it's still a matter of weeks before time for a deal runs out.