Sure, it sucks right now to be a Star Tribune pressman as management tries to void your labor contract. But it may suck worse to be a PiPress pressman down the road.

A Wednesday night Star Tribune story reveals "exploratory" discussions about printing the St. Paul paper in Minneapolis. The Strib was in bankruptcy court that afternoon trying to chop press workers' compensation, either by mutual agreement or judicial fiat.

Should Minneapolis wages be sufficiently sliced, PiPressers would get the knife in the back. According to the story, PiPress publisher Guy Gilmore "said his paper's contract with its pressmen would permit such an arrangement."

Nice contract there, fellas.

This is a move so inevitable that I mentioned it in passing this morning. There are hurdles aplenty, including scheduling two papers' press runs — although the way things are going, that might not be a problem for long. 

In my morning piece, I argued that at least one of the local rags could hold on longer than people think. That claim was nicely undermined by the other bit of news in the Strib piece: Ad sales fell 30 percent for the first two months of 2009 from a year earlier.

That shouldn't be a complete shock; a month ago, the Strib predicted 2009 revenues would be a third less than 2007, and this first quarter has been terrible for everyone. It's in the Strib's interest to poor-mouth itself to spur judicial action, but the falloff seems steeper than projected, and a cash shortfall is especially dangerous right now.

Creditors have given the paper an April 13 deadline to fully whack labor, but if the paper's cash reserves run out early, there's no guarantee anyone will lend a helping hand.