Nominations for president and vice-president of CWA/SCA Canada closed Thursday, April 16, with only two nominations received by the National Elections Committee.
As a result, we declare Martin O’Hanlon returned as President and Lois Kirkup as Vice-president, by acclamation.
National Election Committee, CWA/SCA Canada
Source: business.financialpost.com
Postmedia Network Canada Corp. is aiming to complete its integration with Sun Media in six to nine months, the company’s chief executive Paul Godfrey said Tuesday, a day after the Sun takeover was completed. Read entire story here
2015.03.26
This is a national election year for CWA Canada and the nomination period is now open for two senior leadership positions.
All members are eligible to run for office or nominate someone as a candidate for President and/or Vice-president, the posts currently held by Martin O’Hanlon and Lois Kirkup, respectively.
The deadline for submitting nominations is noon on Thursday, April 16.
If an election is required, a campaign and voting period of 35 days would immediately follow, during which each union Local can decide how it wants to conduct the vote.
Locals can opt to hold a vote in the workplace or have ballots sent directly to members who would then mail them to head office in Ottawa in a prepaid envelope.
The President of CWA Canada, which is a full-time paid position, and the Vice-president serve four-year terms.
The official election notice and nomination form are available on the CWA|SCA Canada website.
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For more information, contact CWA|SCA Canada Election Committee member Scott Edmonds.
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LINKS:
election notice
http://www.cwa-scacanada.ca/documents/pdf/2015/150326_elxn_notice.pdf
http://www.cwa-scacanada.ca/documents/pdf/2015/150326_nominate.pdf
Scott Edmonds
Source: thenextweb.com
In the wake of mass layoffs of photographers from major news organizations like the Chicago Sun Times and Sports Illustrated, the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) wanted to find out whether or not typical newspaper readers preferred — or could even tell the difference between — photos shot by professional photographers and those contributed by amateur shutterbugs. Read entire story here
Source: cwa-scacanada.ca
Calling it “another bleak day for journalism,” president Martin O’Hanlon said he would be consulting with the leaders of two Locals, the Typographical Unions in Moncton and Saint John, about filing grievances.
“We will continue to fight to preserve professional journalism and local jobs” at all of the newspapers where CWA Canada represents employees, said O’Hanlon. “How do you produce a quality newspaper without your own photographers?”
Six photography staff, five of them CWA Canada members, will be axed at the Moncton Times & Transcript and the Telegraph-Journal in Saint John.
The unionized photographer at The Daily Gleaner “has not been laid off at this time,” said Steve Llewellyn, president of the Fredericton Typographical Union. The Local’s five-year contract expired at the end of October 2014 and, while no date has been set for negotiations to begin, “layoffs are not permitted during contract talks,” he added.
Llewellyn said he and his union colleagues at the Gleaner are “saddened and disappointed by the photography layoffs announced in Saint John and Moncton on Monday.”
“The entire newsroom is devastated by the wiping out of our photography department,” said Dwayne Tingley, president of the Moncton Typographical Union. “Chief photographer Greg Agnew and staff photographers Ron Ward and Viktor Pivovarov have all been with the company for close to 20 years and they were, in many respects, the face of the company in the community.”
Tingley explained, “With shrinking newsrooms, most reporters rarely leave their desks; they must get their stories on the phone and through emails. This meant the photographers were sent to every event — from highway crashes to basketball games to high school graduations. People in the community knew all three of these guys and they liked and respected them.”
“Their loss will seriously impact the product,” said Tingley. “Untrained reporters taking shots on their smartphones can’t compare with professionals with proper equipment. Most of us, even me, can get a shot of a politician on a podium at the Rotary Club. It takes a real pro to get the shot of the politician running away from the podium.”
He also noted that it was Pivovarov who took the photo of the gun-wielding man who fatally shot three RCMP officers in Moncton last year. The Mounties distributed the image as part of their efforts to track him down.
“Viktor is a committed professional. He on that occasion — and all three photographers on many others — have been willing to put themselves in harm’s way,” in order to do their jobs, said Tingley.
Two photographers at the Telegraph-Journal, Kâté Braydon and Cindy Wilson, were notified Monday afternoon that they were being let go, said Bruce Bartlett, president of the Saint John Typographical Union.
Through Brunswick News, the powerful Irving family owns every English-language daily, a majority of community/weeklies and most of the French-language newspapers in the province.
John Lehmann, on staff at The Globe and Mail and president of the News Photographers Association of Canada, told CBC News that the Brunswick News layoffs mean a loss of quality journalism.
“You’re losing the ability to inform the public of much of what’s going on around them. Sure, there will still be words, but there’s so much that can’t be captured by words,” Lehmann said.
“And when you lay off a photojournalist and rely on untrained people, I think you really lose quality in the paper. And if you’re losing quality in the paper, why would you bother to pick it up and read it?”
That loss of quality was evident two years ago, after Sun-Times Media laid off its entire photo staff at the Chicago Sun-Times and its sister newspapers in the suburbs. (Of the 28 photojournalists fired, 17 were protected by the collective agreement with the Chicago Newspaper Guild. Less than a year later, four of the 17 were re-hired.)
‘Here’s What It Looks Like When You Replace Photographers With iPhone-Wielding Reporters’ was published at Wired.com in July 2013. The article recounts how a freelance photographer compared the Sun-Times’ visual presentations with those of its competitor, the Chicago Tribune, which still has staff photographers.
– See more at: http://www.cwa-scacanada.ca/EN/news/2015/150310_irv_photogs.shtml#sthash.8u96HWBe.dpuf
IN January, the Washington Post reported on the city’s latest “scandal.”
Evidently, a union organizing drive was underway in a digital-news shop. The “threat” was so real that a right-wing anti-taxer vowed to help fight off the terrible union.
That audacious union was ours.
What the Post didn’t know is that we routinely get phone calls from digital-media employees curious about organizing. Some of those calls turn into full-fledged drives. Others don’t. Or they aren’t public yet as pro-union employees work behind the scenes building support
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that workers like the idea of democracy in the workplace. Despite all the ill-informed badmouthing of unions, surveys show that most workers would join a union given the opportunity. Grievously, the damage that corporations, anti-union politicians and the courts have done to labor law over the years limits those opportunities.
When employees at digital publications call us, they are as likely to talk about working conditions as wages. This is especially true as workers get into their late 20’s and early 30’s—when they’ve decided they want a life as well as a job.
We help these workers any way we can. If they decide to organize, they are in control of the process. They decide what’s important and what a fair contract would look like.
It should go without saying that it’s invaluable to have a signed document that states what the rules are, as well as minimum standards for wages and benefits. You’ll never find an executive who hasn’t negotiated a contract—typically a highly favorable one with a fat exit package even if he or she is fired.
In the turbulent industry that is media today, these conversations are more important than ever. While some employers are smart enough to pay for quality journalism, others see a sea of laid-off writers and editors and scheme to get as much work out of them as possible at the lowest cost. Some are so arrogant and brazen that they use the “cachet” of a byline to barter for work with no pay.
But even the worst of those employers aren’t the parasites that are Google, Facebook and other content aggregators that effectively steal revenue from news organizations.
Whether your organization is all-digital or still has a print component, Google and its ilk are taking advantage. Google would have you believe that its own genius is responsible for its wealth—nearly $5 billion in profit in the last quarter of 2014, up 30 percent from the same quarter in 2013. In fact, those billions are siphoned from your labor and others’ investment.
Fresh, quality, credible information is a precious resource. It gets more valuable every day, as once-proud and respected news organizations slash jobs and wages. As new employers attempt to fill the gaping hole in the quality and quantity of bona fide journalism, it is vital that workers have a voice.
I noted that some people feel threatened by unions and purposely distort what we do, throwing around phrases like “union bosses” and “union thugs.” They want workers to see unions as outsiders who would exploit them. We know that nothing could be further from the truth.
But they spread those lies because workplace democracy is the last thing they want. They demand no limits on their power and greed. They see unions as a threat because history proves how effective we are at improving workers’ lives. They know that unions did, in fact, create America’s now-disappearing middle class.
Unions aren’t the enemy of management. We can and do work with employers to build better products and stronger companies. In our field, no one cares more about the product—journalism—than journalists themselves. When we can negotiate fair wages, benefits and working conditions, quality journalism thrives.
The loudmouth union-haters on certain TV networks and radio shows, have done a huge disservice to the many Americans who are told nothing about the democratic nature of unions and how we function.
There’s nothing “shocking” about journalists or any other workers trying to form a union. They are ordinary people who want some control over their work lives. You may be one of those people. Give us a call. You’ll be in good company.
Source: j-source.ca
By Rachel Sanders, for StoryBoard.ca
Stories about the devaluing of photojournalism are all too common these days, but it’s still shocking when things hit a new low. When John Lehmann, president of the News Photographers Association of Canada, heard that a newspaper in Victoria was advertising for volunteer photographers to cover weekend events, he found the news jaw-dropping. Even more so, he says, when he learned that the Black Press-owned Victoria News had recently laid off its staff photographer. read entire story here
Dear Local President,
I am pleased to announce that we are now accepting applications for the John Belcarz and Dan Zeidler post-secondary education/training memorial scholarships. Two scholarships of $1,000 each are available.
The accompanying attachments contain a poster and application form in both English and French (also available on our website: http://www.cwa-scacanada.ca). Please circulate this information to your members.
In solidarity,
Martin O’Hanlon
President, CWA/SCA Canada
Download poster and application here.
Source: cwa-union.org
TNG-CWA President Bernie Lunzer was re-elected to a third term last week, but he won’t be known as president of The Newspaper Guild-CWA.
He’s now the president of The NewsGuild-CWA, a name that conference delegates agreed was better suited for the changing news industry and the diversity of Guild units. The new name isn’t exactly a 21st-century innovation. Lunzer purchased the domain name in 1995 – when only 14 percent of Americans had internet access – and expected Guild members would approve it then.
Read more at: http://www.cwa-union.org/news/entry/tng-cwa_delegates_vote_for_historic_name_change
In a column published in The Guild Reporter several weeks before the Orlando meeting Jan. 15-18, Lunzer explained:
“I was convinced that local Guild leaders would vote to drop ‘paper’ from our name. I was wrong. Delegates had strong and passionate feelings about ‘newspapers’ almost as if bracing against the tidal wave of change headed toward their industry and careers. Twenty years later, it is past time. It is inevitable. We are media. We are content producers. Ink may be in our blood but it is no longer essential to our survival.”
In his remarks, CWA President Larry Cohen talked about the importance of journalism and the dangers of the pending TPP trade deal.
Cohen received standing ovations at the beginning and end of his Jan. 15 remarks, in which he praised the Guild for being a vital part of CWA and for fighting for First Amendment principles that matter to all Americans.
“This notion of democracy, a key part of it is journalism – the ability to investigate and write stories,” Cohen said. “What happens to journalism and to everyone in this room matters to our democracies and to our communities.”
TNG-CWA Acting Secretary-Treasurer Sara Steffens said she knows some Guild members have to be mindful of an ethical line but asked j
Read more at: http://www.cwa-union.org/news/entry/tng-cwa_delegates_vote_for_historic_name_change
An award named for CWA President Larry Cohen in honor of his tireless movement-building efforts will be presented to a Guild member or local staffer every other year at TNG-CWA conferences.
The Guild, meeting in Orlando last week, surprised Cohen with the news at the end of a fiery speech that brought delegates to their feet.
Cohen is on a mission, one he plans to continue when he retirees from CWA in June, to building a movement of unions and organizations with different agendas but similar social justice values. He argues fervently that a large-scale people’s movement is the only way to take back political power from billionaires and multinational corporations.
“We wanted to honor Larry for the enormous amount of time, energy and passion he has put into this pursuit,” Guild President Bernie Lunzer said. “We also want to encourage our members and locals to expand their movement-building efforts.”
The “Larry Cohen Movement-Building Award” will recognize Guild members or local staff members who who do the most to build coalitions of activists. More specific details about the award still need to be hammered out.
For journalists in the Guild whose jobs demand strict objectivity, reaching out to community leaders and activist groups can be tricky. But not all Guild members are under those pressures.
“Some of our members need to refrain from direct political action because of a conflict of interest, real or perceived,” Lunzer said. “But to different degrees, we believe everyone in the Guild can play a role in strengthening the pursuit of justice. Let’s never forget that freedom of association is enshrined in the First Amendment, just like free speech and a free press.”
In his speech, Cohen made the connection between movement-building and journalism.
“It is our turn,” he said. “We need to build a democracy movement. We need to connect it to inequality. Good journalism. Good information. This is so important as we try to show our communities what a fair-economy looks like. Journalism helps us connect the dots.”