Cash-strapped Maariv will continue to be published for now

Workers of the struggling daily Maariv worked through the night to publish a daily paper Tuesday, after a tense meeting between union representatives and the paper’s management led by owner Shlomo Ben-Tzvi  over a planned round of cutbacks ended “amicably,” according to reports.

The negotiations will resume on Tuesday, but the paper will continue to be published for now. The Tel Aviv Labor Court was due to hear a request Tuesday morning by union representatives to conduct negotiations on the terms of the management’s plans to lay off workers and cut salaries.

Earlier Monday night, 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. 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.

Ben-Tzvi — also the owner of Makor Rishon — 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 lay off 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.