On Monday employees at the Maui News agreed to a new three-year contract with the newspapers owner the Maui Publishing Co. The new contract includes a 10 percent pay cut as well as health and pension concessions, Bizjournal.com reported Tuesday.

The newspaper's three unions, The Hawaii Newspaper Guild, The Honolulu Typographical Union and the Graphic Communications Conference / International Brotherhood of Teamsters, that represent 99 employees said they understood the difficult position of the newspaper in the current industry and economic climates.

The new contract will see Maui Publishing freeze its pension plan and negotiate a new retirement scheme with the unions. The new plan will see contributions from the company but it will not be directly responsible for its administration.

The pay cut will be enforced from next month onwards but the contract also acts to restore most employees' salaries' over the next three years. Twenty percent of the cut will be reimbursed by 2011, a further 50 percent in 2012 and the remaining 30 percent will be put towards the new retirement package.

Maui employees will now also be responsible for five percent of their medical insurance premiums that were formerly completely covered by Maui Publishing. Dental costs will continue to be fully covered by the publishing firm.

In addition to The Maui News, Maui Publishing Co. owns the Lahaina News, Maui Bulletin, Haleakala Times and Maui Weekly.