Workers vote to end strike with paper

SEATTLE (AP) - Seattle Times workers have voted to end their 7-week strike against the newspaper.

Editorial and advertising members of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild voted 359-116 in favor of the latest contract proposal, said union spokesman Ron Judd at a news conference last night.

He said picket lines were coming down immediately.

The proposal, which includes raises of $3.30 an hour over six years, guarantees that all workers laid off as a result of the strike can return to work within six months.

Employees of Seattle's two daily newspapers walked out Nov. 21 in a dispute over raises and other benefits.

Times employees rejected a proposed contract Dec. 30 after Guild negotiators recommended against it, primarily because of the return to work provisions the newspaper was offering then.

Striking Seattle Post-Intelligencer employees approved their contract offer and returned to work Jan. 2.

The Guild represents about 130 Post Intelligencer editorial staffers and approximately 870 reporters, photographers and business employees at The Times.

The Times agreed to increase its share of health insurance payments and raise wages for some lower-paid classifications.

The paper also agreed that within three years, not six, it would eliminate a two-tier system that pays suburban reporters and photographers less than their downtown counterparts.

Both papers continued to publish during the work stoppage, using managers, replacement workers and employees who crossed the picket line. The papers are published and distributed by The Times under a 1983 joint operating agreement, but the newsrooms compete.