Cash-strapped Maariv threatens to stop presses

Struggling daily Maariv, which was bought out last October by hawkish Makor Rishon owner Shlomo Ben-Tzvi, may not publish Tuesday as workers face off against the paper’s management over a planned round of cutbacks.

The paper’s management said it would not print a paper Tuesday, saying it was unable to continue financing the print edition of the struggling daily. As of 10 p.m., Maariv employees were still forging ahead with producing the next day’s newspaper despite their bosses’ insistence that no Tuesday issue would roll out, calling their move a “reverse strike.”

The paper, one of four mass-market Hebrew-language dailies in Israel, has slogged through several rounds of cutbacks in the last year; it stopped production for a day in November when workers went on strike over layoffs.

On Monday night, employee, management and union representatives met to find a way to get the presses rolling in time for the deadline. 

Ben-Tzvi purchased the failing paper last year and, in order to keep it afloat, laid off the majority of the paper’s 2,000-odd workers. In order to keep it running, he also ordered pay cuts for any staff members earning more than NIS 15,000 ($4,000) per month. 

The paper’s management reportedly wants to cut 25 workers at Maariv and Makor Rishon, cut pay for some workers by up to 15 percent, and move the paper’s offices from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Ben-Tzvi indicated that if the cuts went through, his family would pump another NIS 25 million into Maariv, business website Globes reported.