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Wages Key Issue in Canadian News Strikes
Angered largely by meager wage offers, and in some cases, wage cuts, TNG-CWA units at three Canadian newspapers are on strike and workers at a fourth, The Sudbury Star in Ontario, have been locked out since Oct. 5.
Just moments after leaders of TNG-CWA 30232 at the Star had agreed to let members vote on a paltry contract offer, the company - apparently certain the union would reject it - locked out nearly 80 employees and replaced them with scab labor. Key issues not only include wages and pensions but such basics as ensuring that reporters have an adequate number of telephones, desks and computers.
In Victoria, more than 250 members of two Guild units are in the seventh week of a strike that has virtually shut down the Times-Colonist, owned by Canadian media giant CanWest Global. Management is continuing to demand large cuts in wages and benefits for some workers and language to let the company contract out work. The units include editorial, circulation, advertising and customer service employees in TNG-CWA Local 30223 and mailers in Local 30403.
On Oct. 11, 45 members of the Peterborough Typographical Union, TNG-CWA Local 30248 walked off their jobs at the Cobourg Daily Star and Port Hope Evening Guide. Members authorized the strike in September by a 93% margin.
The company - the Osprey Media Group, which also owns the Sudbury Star - wants to raise wages only 6.5 percent over three years, less than the inflation rate. Wages at the papers average $10.91 an hour in Canadian dollars, the equivalent of $6.65 an hour in the United States.
"It is an uncontested fact that (our members) are some of the poorest paid newspaper employees in the country," union leaders said. "Year after year, contract after contract - with empty promises of better things to come - the employer has taken advantage of the goodwill and hard-work ethics of its employees, leaving us in an untenable financial position."
Just moments after leaders of TNG-CWA 30232 at the Star had agreed to let members vote on a paltry contract offer, the company - apparently certain the union would reject it - locked out nearly 80 employees and replaced them with scab labor. Key issues not only include wages and pensions but such basics as ensuring that reporters have an adequate number of telephones, desks and computers.
In Victoria, more than 250 members of two Guild units are in the seventh week of a strike that has virtually shut down the Times-Colonist, owned by Canadian media giant CanWest Global. Management is continuing to demand large cuts in wages and benefits for some workers and language to let the company contract out work. The units include editorial, circulation, advertising and customer service employees in TNG-CWA Local 30223 and mailers in Local 30403.
On Oct. 11, 45 members of the Peterborough Typographical Union, TNG-CWA Local 30248 walked off their jobs at the Cobourg Daily Star and Port Hope Evening Guide. Members authorized the strike in September by a 93% margin.
The company - the Osprey Media Group, which also owns the Sudbury Star - wants to raise wages only 6.5 percent over three years, less than the inflation rate. Wages at the papers average $10.91 an hour in Canadian dollars, the equivalent of $6.65 an hour in the United States.
"It is an uncontested fact that (our members) are some of the poorest paid newspaper employees in the country," union leaders said. "Year after year, contract after contract - with empty promises of better things to come - the employer has taken advantage of the goodwill and hard-work ethics of its employees, leaving us in an untenable financial position."