Cablevision is hoping to shave $10 million in costs from its money-draining Newsday operating by booting about 35 drivers.
The cuts are contained in a proposed four-year labor pact that is expected to go to a vote on Sunday.
The outcome is far from certain.
The vote has split the union workforce, since none of the other four bargaining units are being targeted for cuts — and leaders of the drivers’ union are already asking members to reject the pact.
“I am not supporting the proposal,” said Andrew Bertolino, vice president of the transportation bargaining unit, Local 406 of the Graphic Communications Council, affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
If the drivers reject the pact, Cablevision will take pay hikes for all unionized workers in four other bargaining units of Local 406 off the table, sources said.
If the transportation unit OKs the job cuts — taking a $29,500 bonus to exit — then all unionized workers will get a 6 percent pay hike doled out over the next four years.
Cablevision is also promising to restore payments to the 401(k) plan, which it has not made since the takeover.
In the previous, bitterly contested negotiations three years ago, workers approved a 5 percent pay cut under threat of mass downsizings — after first rejecting the cable company parent’s proposal for a 10 percent pay hit.
Newsday has been hemorrhaging money ever since Cablevision CEO Jim Dolan agreed to buy the struggling Long Island daily from Sam Zell’s bankrupt Tribune Company in 2006.
Newsday lost about $40 million in 2012 and the red ink appears to be getting even deeper.
In the first half of 2013, the operating cash flow deficit was $12.2 million, compared to $4.29 million in the same period a year ago.
Circulation for the Melville, NY, daily, the 12th largest in the country, fell 5.1 percent in the six months ended March 31, to 377,744, from 397,973, according to the Alliance for audited Media.
A Newsday spokesman said, “We have a productive dialogue underway with the union management on a host of matters and will not comment further.”