The Boston Globe and its biggest union are taking a break until later Monday or Tuesday on talks about concessions that parent company The New York Times Co says are crucial to save the newspaper.

The union and management suspended discussions early Monday morning. They have not set a time or location for the next round of talks, a source familiar with the matter, but unauthorized to discuss it, told Reuters.

The Times Co had set midnight Sunday as the deadline to extract $20 million in cost cuts from its unions to avoid closing the Globe, which it said could lose up to $85 million this year.

The Times stepped up pressure on the unions, saying it planned to file notice with the U.S. government that warns it could shut the paper down in 60 days. Negotiations on cost cuts could continue even after that filing.

The 137-year-old Globe is a mainstay of New England news consumers. It is the 17th-largest paper in the United States by daily paid circulation, and 13th-largest on Sundays. If it closed, Boston would be the first big U.S. city to be without a daily newspaper of comparable size.

(Reporting by Robert MacMillan, editing by Maureen Bavdek).