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Training/education grant of up to $500 for laid-off members If you are affected by a layoff or related buyout, all you need to do to receive the grant is provide proof of payment for a skills training or education course (university, community college, online, or the like) to Marj Botsford at our national office (email:mbotsford@cwa-scacanada.ca Tel: 1-877-486-4292 Fax 613-820-8188) CWA/SCA Canada 7B - 1050 Baxter Rd Ottawa, ON K2C 3P1.

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Guild Bulletin Board

The Carol McGregor CLC Disability Rights Award

Attached is the letter and nomination form for The Carol McGregor CLC Disability Rights Award.
Please pass it along to your members, post it on your bulletin board and website.

Download here

 

 

 

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NEGOTIATIONS UPDATE

Negotiations between the Victoria Joint Council of Newspaper Unions and the Times Colonist reached an impasse on Thursday, September 22, 2011, when the Company attempted to reintroduce significant items the Guild believed had been removed.

Previously scheduled meetings for next week have been cancelled.
No new dates have been scheduled at this time.

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Jobs lost as PNG exits insert business

Source: mediaunion.ca

The Vancouver Sun and Province are getting out of the insert business effective July 15, 2012, a move that will cost over 50 Local 2000 members their jobs. Management informed the union about the move on Monday, saying that the insert business was on track to lose almost $1 million this year. Only about 12 members will be eligible for relocation (severance) pay under Part E (the Mailroom Department) of our collective agreement.

PNG mailers are divided into three groups: Regulars, substitutes and day slippers. Regulars are guaranteed hours and operate the machinery that assembles the newspaper for delivery; substitutes fill in for regulars, but get the majority of their work when inserts are added to the newspapers; day slippers are called in as needed. Only the 12 regulars who will fall to the substitute “board” under the company’s plan, are eligible for relocation pay of up to one year’s pay. Even though some substitutes have over 20 years seniority, they are not eligible for severance of any sort, in these circumstance under existing contract language.

Discussions  with the company are ongoing under Section 54 of the B.C. Labour Code.

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TEXT-S&P revises Postmedia outlook to negative

Source: reuters.com

(The following statement was released by the rating agency) Overview — We are revising our outlook on Toronto-based Postmedia Network Inc. to negative from stable based on the company’s weaker-than-expected operating performance in the second quarter ended Feb. 29, 2012. — We are affirming all our ratings on the company, including our ‘B’ long-term corporate credit rating. — The negative outlook reflects Standard & Poor’s view of the ongoing challenges Postmedia faces with revenue and profitability declines given difficult industry fundamentals.

Read entire story here

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How 2 twentysomething journalists brought down a corrupt Kentucky sheriff

Source: poynter.org

“60 Minutes” | Nieman Reports | YouTube
Samantha Swindler, then 27, had been managing editor of the Corbin (Ky.) Times-Tribune for about three years when she asked 20-year-old Adam Sulfridge to report on a corrupt sheriff, Lawrence Hodge, who was involved in trading guns, drugs and favors. At the time, Sulfridge was a local college sophomore “whose only experience was working on his high school newspaper.” Swindler told “60 Minutes”‘ Byron Pitts she hired Sulfridge because, “He was smart, he knew about the community, and he cared about local government.” Sulfridge also had a personal stake in the story: his aunt had overdosed. “My first question was, I wonder if she got her drugs from somebody that the sheriff was protecting.”    Read entire story here

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Save the press councils

Source: straightgoods.ca

Watchdogs need more teeth as well as public and industry support.

Dateline: Tuesday, April 17, 2012

by John Gordon Miller, Ryerson University

In a new questionnaire about the future of press councils in Canada, we are asked, “In your opinion, how accountable are news organizations to the publics they serve?”

I suspect almost no one will answer “very accountable.”

About the only useful thing you can do if you object to something published in a newspaper these days is (a) write a letter to the editor, or (b) sue them. Success depends on (a) whether they decide to publish it, and (b) whether you’ve got a lot of time and money and don’t mind losing. read entire story here

 

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Postmedia plans online paywalls, sale of Toronto headquarters

Source:theglobeandmail.com

The Ottawa Citizen and Vancouver Sun are putting up online paywalls and the National Post will sell its headquarters as Postmedia Network Inc.(PNC.B-T3.50-0.50-12.50%) struggles in a bleak advertising market that it doesn’t see improving any time soon.
Read full story here

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Ninety per cent said they read papers for local coverage.

Source: theglobeandmail.com

Hey, did you guys see that video of the drunk guy singing Bohemian Rhapsody? How about last weekend’s punch-up between Justin Trudeau and Patrick Brazeau? Awesome, right? Though, true, not as awesome as those news stories about pink slime in fast food and crushed bugs in frappuccinos.

In the cultural marketplace that assigns high values to buzzy ephemera through traffic measurement and social-media sharing, there are plenty of reasons for pessimism among those who care about the future of an engaged citizenry. If people can’t even be trusted to pay attention to the issues that directly affect them and their communities – because, frankly, the online parade of bread and circuses is so much more fun – what chance do we have of changing what ails us?

read entire story here

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Not Your Mom and Dad’s Labour Movement

Source: thetyee.com

Young workers prepare to re-shape unions for the 21st century.

They sign up new members, they organize picket lines and demonstrations, they conduct high school classes in labour rights and workplace safety, and they cook meals for fundraising events to send young workers on solidarity trips to Cuba, South Africa and Central America. One even came back from a vacation in Las Vegas with a tattoo declaring their commitment to the cause. (You’ll find out where in a minute.) Read entire story here

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Newspaper readership holds steady

Source: theglobeandmail.com

Canadian newspaper publishers scrambling to get their news online face a stark reality – more than half of their readers still rely on printing presses and newsprint for their daily news hit.

A study by the Newspaper Audience Databank examined stats from 62 Canadian weekly and daily newspapers and found that 58 per cent of readers only read print and that print readership has held steady over the last several years.

Read entire story here

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Conservatives launch new attack on unions with ‘grossly unfair’ public disclosure bill

CWA Canada is calling on members to help fight passage through Parliament of a private member’s bill that would introduce onerous reporting rules for unions that are not required of other dues-deducting organizations.

The Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) says Bill C-377 in its current form would be the “most costly and discriminatory bill faced by the labour movement” in this country.

Every labour organization and all unions, including locals, branches, councils, lodges, etc., would have to disclose detailed financial information, salaries, supplier contracts, loans, accounts receivables, investments, spending on organizing, collective bargaining, education, training, lobbying and all political activities. The information would be made public on a Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) website.

“This bill is grossly unfair and hypocritical,” says CWA Canada Director Martin O’Hanlon. “It’s just plain wrong to single out labour groups for special scrutiny, especially when even taxpayer-funded MPs don’t disclose full details of their spending.

“This is nothing but yet another ideological Conservative attack on unions that comes right out of the Republican party playbook in the United States. No fair-minded Canadian should stand for this, regardless of what party they support.”

The CLC points out the bill is backed by such anti-union groups as the Fraser Institute, the Merit Shop Contractors and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business because they would have access to detailed information about everything a union spends money on and allow them to assess a union’s strength. The information, provided at taxpayer and union expense, can be used to threaten collective bargaining rights and organizing drives.

CWA Canada is urging its members to contact their MPs as soon as possible to let the government know that it’s wrong to single out labour groups for such scrutiny. The bill is currently at an early stage of proceedings in the House, with debate scheduled for today, March 13. A vote would likely occur next week; if passed, it would be referred to the Finance Committee for consideration and potentially public hearings.

The bill’s sponsor, Conservative MP Russ Hiebert, conforms to his party’s now standard practise of introducing legislation to deal with non-existent problems. A slick website that has been created in support of the bill (almost certainly at taxpayer expense) contains misleading and incorrect information, which the MP apparently hopes will be believed if it’s repeated often enough.

Although he acknowledges that unions already disclose financial information to their members in accordance with their own bylaws and provincial regulations, he seeks public disclosure because of “tax benefits these institutions receive” which he has pegged at $400 million a year.

There is not a shred of truth to that claim: Unions do not receive any public subsidy. It is workers and their families, not unions, who receive an income tax deduction related to their dues. The tax treatment of these workers is exactly the same as that for dues-paying members of the law societies, medical associations or employers who belong to industry associations.

Opposition House leader Joe Comartin called the proposed legislation “a frontal attack on the labour movement” when the bill was given second reading in February. The NDP MP said it would, in fact, threaten rights to privacy, association and freedom of speech.

The strategy behind similar, but less onerous, legislation in the U.S. was that “every dollar spent on disclosure and reporting” was a dollar not spent on other union activities, said Comartin.

While the website dismisses as negligible the expense to unions to assemble and report such information, the CLC estimates it would take the average local union — most of which are run by volunteers — 200 to 400 hours annually at a significant cost to their treasuries. Some estimates say it would add 20 per cent to the current costs, and for some of the pension funds, it would require them to file returns “the size of a large city’s phone book.”

Hiebert also glosses over the cost to taxpayers, which will amount to millions of dollars to create a massive database, related materials and hundreds of CRA staff to administer it all.

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