Writers, editors, and sales and marketing people at the legendary Village Voice newspaper held a lunchtime rally on Monday in New York City to demand that they be allowed to keep their fair contract, which was due to expire at midnight Monday.

Eden Schulz, secretary-treasurer of UAW Local 2110, said, "We are in negotiations. We had a union here for many, many years, and we have been able to win a wonderful contract that has a lot of great benefits. Over the years, the staff has shrunk quite a bit, and now they're really coming after our health benefits, which is a very valuable benefit for people."

Schulz said wages at the Voice are now not great, with the average salary at $45,000, and people would be expected to pay $200 a month and those with families $700 a month for the health plan.

"People really count on having a good solid health plan with no employee contributions," Schulz said. "That is something we have fought for many years. Being able to preserve a health plan where you don't have to make a contribution is rare these days, and something that means a lot to people, and they are not willing to give up."

The proposed health contribution translates to a 20 percent pay cut. Twenty workers would be affected by the new contact proposals. Management is also threatening to halve severance payments for senior employees and cut job protection.

Stephanie Zacharek, senior film critic at the Voice, said management wants to gouge workers to help defray the costs of health care.

She said, "I realized we love the Voice more than they do. Some of us have wanted to work for this newspaper because of Ellen Willis, Bob Christgau, Jim Holberman, Hat Hentoff, Norman Mailer. We love the legacy, we love paper as it is now, and we care about its future. So we are here out of love."

Latin Post called Village Media Group spokeswoman Jaimen Sfetko for comment about the contract negotiations, but calls have not been returned.

The Village Voice is owned by privately held media company Voice Media Group, based in Denver, Colorado. The company owns and operates 11 weekly newspapers in addition to the Village Voice: LA Weekly (Los Angeles), Westword (Denver), New Times (Phoenix), the Houston Press, the Dallas Observer, the Riverfront Times (St. Louis), New Times (Miami), City Pages (Minneapolis), New Times (Broward/Palm Beach) and OC Weekly (Orange County).

LA Weekly is unionized, but the others are not. UAW's Schulz said, "We are holding the line for unauthorized workers, too."