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First Pact in Halifax Boosts Newsroom Pay by Up to $30,000
Members of The Newspaper Guild-CWA at the Halifax Chronicle-Herald in Nova Scotia were hours away from striking in mid-November when the paper's nervous management offered a first contract that will boost some workers' salaries by as much as $30,000 over the next four years.
Delighted Guild officials say it shows what can happen when a membership is united, motivated and mobilized.
"It's a first contract, but it looks like a contract that's been around for decades," said Dave Wilson, TNG-CWA staff representative in eastern Canada.
The Halifax Guild, which represents 100 newsroom employees, was organized in 1997 and had been struggling to get a contract ever since. The company sought to exclude more than 20 workers from the bargaining unit, a dispute the union won after a series of Labor Board hearings.
The contract lifts a decade-long wage freeze and eliminates a two-tier pay system that had newer employees making substantially less than their peers. Now, after two to four years of service in a given job, workers will be paid equally.
For some Guild members, that means $20,000 to $30,000 more in earnings at the end of the four-year contract, when top-scale reporters and photographers will be making $52,000 annually.
Rick Conrad, president of the Halifax Guild, called the raises "a testament to how low they've been paid all along."
Other highlights of the contract include time-and-a-half pay for the first three hours of overtime, then double time. Employees get a minimum of four hours overtime pay if called back after the end of their shifts. Additionally, the contract allows employees to set aside a portion of their paycheck annually for a period of years, then take a year's sabbatical.
The agreement prohibits most contracting out of work and protects employees from losing jobs that could be eliminated because of technology.
The paper, Canada's last major independent daily, has been in owner Graham Dennis' family for more than a century. "The paper has never missed a day's publication, and they take pride in that," Wilson said. "They were very concerned."
Halifax has a second daily newspaper, and advertisers were writing to Dennis pledging not to do business with him in the event of a strike or lockout, he said. The holiday season was looming and a determined membership was ready to walk. Ninety-nine percent of the union had OK'd a strike in a September vote.
Late in the afternoon of Nov. 15, the Guild gave the company 48 hours' notice of a walkout, as required in Nova Scotia. A day and a half later, at the end of a 24-hour bargaining session, the two sides reached agreement.
"The beauty of this thing was that the membership was totally mobilized and the leadership was very, very strong," said Arnold Amber, director of TNG-CWA Canada.
"They knew what they wanted and they fought to get it."
Delighted Guild officials say it shows what can happen when a membership is united, motivated and mobilized.
"It's a first contract, but it looks like a contract that's been around for decades," said Dave Wilson, TNG-CWA staff representative in eastern Canada.
The Halifax Guild, which represents 100 newsroom employees, was organized in 1997 and had been struggling to get a contract ever since. The company sought to exclude more than 20 workers from the bargaining unit, a dispute the union won after a series of Labor Board hearings.
The contract lifts a decade-long wage freeze and eliminates a two-tier pay system that had newer employees making substantially less than their peers. Now, after two to four years of service in a given job, workers will be paid equally.
For some Guild members, that means $20,000 to $30,000 more in earnings at the end of the four-year contract, when top-scale reporters and photographers will be making $52,000 annually.
Rick Conrad, president of the Halifax Guild, called the raises "a testament to how low they've been paid all along."
Other highlights of the contract include time-and-a-half pay for the first three hours of overtime, then double time. Employees get a minimum of four hours overtime pay if called back after the end of their shifts. Additionally, the contract allows employees to set aside a portion of their paycheck annually for a period of years, then take a year's sabbatical.
The agreement prohibits most contracting out of work and protects employees from losing jobs that could be eliminated because of technology.
The paper, Canada's last major independent daily, has been in owner Graham Dennis' family for more than a century. "The paper has never missed a day's publication, and they take pride in that," Wilson said. "They were very concerned."
Halifax has a second daily newspaper, and advertisers were writing to Dennis pledging not to do business with him in the event of a strike or lockout, he said. The holiday season was looming and a determined membership was ready to walk. Ninety-nine percent of the union had OK'd a strike in a September vote.
Late in the afternoon of Nov. 15, the Guild gave the company 48 hours' notice of a walkout, as required in Nova Scotia. A day and a half later, at the end of a 24-hour bargaining session, the two sides reached agreement.
"The beauty of this thing was that the membership was totally mobilized and the leadership was very, very strong," said Arnold Amber, director of TNG-CWA Canada.
"They knew what they wanted and they fought to get it."