The Boston Newspaper Guild is circulating a petition among its members at The Boston Globe, which protests recent word that The New York Times Company, its owner, is offering healthy compensation packages to company executives.

“Last year, the Times threatened to shut down the Globe if workers and unions did not grant cost-cutting concessions such as salary reductions,” the Globe reported. “Given those circumstances, the guild contends that New York Times Co. chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and chief executive Janet L. Robinson were grossly overpaid.”

The letter being circulated with the petition, which will be sent to company executives, states the following:

We were astonished to learn that the two of you received more than $10 million in stock awards and options in 2009. During the year for which you were so richly rewarded, the 600 members of the Boston Newspaper Guild gave back almost the same amount in pay and benefit reductions -- $10 million, to be exact - after you threatened to close our newspaper, lay off hundreds of people, and strip Massachusetts of its largest newspaper. Previously, New York Times officials told us that we needed to accept pay cuts and unpaid days off along with higher health costs, the elimination of our retirement programs and other benefit reductions in order to save the Boston Globe. But the recent SEC filings make it look like almost all of our sacrifices went to pay the two of you.