By Doug Cunningham

Newspaper workers at the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News are prepared to strike if necessary Thursday as they fight to defend their pensions, their seniority system under threats of layoffs and their sick leave benefits. Henry Holcomb , president of the Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia, says defending defined benefit pension benefits is the key issue.

[Henry Holcomb]: “They would like to shift the risk from the employee – from the people who are fortunate enough to own a company. And that is a huge risk for working people to take on. If you happen to retire at the beginning of a bear market, instead of living off the interest of your retirement savings you have to go into the savings itself then you’ve diminished your well-being for the whole rest of your retirement.”

The Philadelphia newspaper owners want to eliminate contributions to their employee defined benefit pension plan. The Newspaper Guild agreed to a thirty-day extension when the contract ran out but as the Thursday midnight deadline approaches Holcomb says there won’t be another extension.

[Holcomb 2]: “I still hope we can reach an agreement. Nobody wants a strike. And if we’re still making progress at midnight we’ll go on. I don’t see a great deal of sentiment for another 30-day extension. So now that we’ve got this momentum going that we would want to just press on until we get it done.”