NWSA News Corporation

Dow Jones & Co., the unit of News Corp that includes The Wall Street Journal, has reached a tentative contract agreement with the union representing some of its employees amid a restructuring at the media company.

The Independent Association of Publishers' Employees, which has been engaged in contract talks with the company since the summer, announced the agreement in a joint news release with Dow Jones. In a separate email to its members, the union said it remained neutral on the contract.

"Ideally, Dow Jones would be offering terms that we liked enough to comfortably endorse an agreement to you. That hasn't happened. Instead, what we have for you is the best offer Dow Jones is willing to make at this point in time," the union said in the email.

The union, which represents some 1,300 employees across the U.S. and in Canada, has been operating without a contract since Oct. 1.

Tim Martell, the union's executive director, told The Wall Street Journal the bargaining committee "believes this is the best agreement possible at this time."

A main sticking point in negotiations has been wage increases, with the company early on offering a 2% increase each year for three years.

The new agreement provides first-year minimum salary increases of 2% for all IAPE-represented employees and similar minimum 2% increases effective the following two years, with bigger increases possible based on a cost-of-living trigger or company guidance for increasing pay of its non-union employees.

Both the union and the company have the option to terminate the agreement at the end of the first or second year. The union called Dow Jones's insistence on that clause "a red flag" and said it believes "there's a decent chance the company wants an early termination."

A Dow Jones spokesperson declined comment.

IAPE members covered by the contract will have an opportunity to vote to ratify the agreement.

The Wall Street Journal debuted a newly formatted version of its print edition on Monday, which combines several sections and reduce the size of some coverage areas as the paper copes with an accelerating industrywide decline in print advertising.

Write to Anne Steele at Anne.Steele@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 15, 2016 13:05 ET (18:05 GMT)

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