Source: vancouversun.com
The Kamloops Daily News is closing due to declining revenues and high costs, but the industry says this does not signal distress in the daily newspaper business as a whole.
“This is the first major market paid daily that we’ve seen close in recent memory,” Newspapers Canada president and CEO John Hinds said.
By Martin O’Hanlon
CWA Canada Director
I’m going to make a bold prediction for 2014: the tide will finally begin to turn.
It will turn for newspapers, which have been through the worst and will begin to see revenues climb again.
It will turn for the Harper government (it already has really) which has been attacking labour, the CBC, and many other progressive voices in Canada.
And most importantly, it will turn for economic inequality, which has become the biggest threat to this country’s future.
By noon on Jan. 2, each of Canada’s top-paid CEO’s had earned as much money in 2014 as the average Canadian worker will make all year.
I don’t begrudge a CEO, or anyone else, a big paycheque. But it is fundamentally unfair – not to mention bad for the economy and society – for companies to pay those big salaries and rake in huge profits when they don’t pay their workers a decent wage.
It angers me when Postmedia cuts hundreds of jobs and insists that it can’t give workers a raise, and then increases its CEO pay by a whopping 50%, to $1.7 million.
More importantly, it angers the majority of Canadians, who have an innate sense of what’s fair.
As 2014 dawns, ordinary people are finally realizing that there are fewer and fewer decent-paying jobs out there – the jobs that built this country.
Many young people are realizing that they may never be able to have that white picket fence. And many parents realize that their children don’t have the opportunity they had.
People are realizing that our political and financial system overwhelmingly favours big companies and the rich, and they see it for what it is: injustice.
It’s vital now that we in the labour movement show Canadians that we all share the same core values and that we are the only ones standing up for the Middle Class.
We have to build a movement, and that means working with other progressives, whether it’s community organizations, social groups, student activists, environmentalists, religious leaders – anyone with whom we can find a common interest.
The Canadian Labour Congress, to which we at CWA Canada belong, is attempting to do just that with its “Fairness Works” campaign. (Please visit:fairnessworks.ca)
The campaign aims to engage millions of union members in conversations about how unions have improved their lives – and share their stories with Canadians to help build a united movement for social justice.
And that’s where each of us has to play a part in 2014.
I am asking each of you – every member of CWA Canada – to commit to doing just one thing this year for the common good.
It could be talking to a fellow worker, especially a younger one, about getting involved in the union. It might be posting about social/economic justice issues on Facebook, volunteering to do something for your Local, telling friends about the good the union does, donating to a cause – whatever.
One person and one act at a time, working together, we can make a difference.
Let’s each do our part to protect quality jobs, defend quality journalism, improve wages, grow our union – and make Canada a better place.
Fairness works. Let’s fight the good fight together!
Source of Article: thetyee.ca
Five-year deals show scrounging for nickels and security is new reality.
These are strange days, indeed, for public sector unions. Big developments, not always happy ones, are everywhere. Yet the dearth of labour reporters and the collective yawns from editors and the public alike have combined to shine relatively little light on groundbreaking events that would have dominated front pages not so long ago when unions were considered important.
These days, it’s all business, all the time. Employees struggling collectively to improve their lot in life, or even just to hang on to what they have, is so last century. Cue the top 10, top 50, top 100 lists of corporations and their powerful executives. Cue the latest real estate blip. Cue record bank profits. Now that’s news!
In beautiful British Columbia, a series of astonishing tentative agreements were signed earlier this month covering more than 50,000 government employees, to scant fanfare. They are like no contracts in the history of public sector bargaining in this province. Snore. Few, apart from the Vancouver Sun, seemed to notice or care. But let this aging, ex-labour reporter hack drone on about why they are significant.
Sure to be benchmarks
The new deals are a virtually unheard of five years in length. In return for all that labour peace, union members will receive a grand pay hike of barely one per cent a year. Such are the tenor of the times, however, that one radio host nevertheless referred to them as “significant wage increases.”
Even more unusual, negotiations were concluded four months (!) before existing contracts were due to expire. That is certainly a first. Think of the savings on strike ballots….
And finally, there is the fascinating, added fillip of a bizarre, economic growth booster. The clause holds out the promise of top-up wage increases should the B.C. economy suddenly roar to life, responding, no doubt, to Christy Clark’s unwavering belief: If you close your eyes, click your heels and wish real hard, dreams can come true.
(I would have declared such a clause unprecedented, but a quick rummage through my personal archives confirmed my hazy recollection of a similar pig-in-a-poke deal in a BCGEU contract from 1982. Called an “economy recovery formula”, it provided points for increases in productivity, government revenue and inflation. There were also points if unemployment went down. Enough points would trigger a mid-contract raise. The end result, after all the fancy pencil-work, was a big fat doughnut for the union.)
These contracts are in addition to an earlier, tentative landmark agreement involving 17,000 members of the Health Sciences Association, one of the province’s three major health unions. Terms are similar.
These lengthy, ultra-modest settlements, covering a quarter of the provincial public sector, will inevitably serve as benchmarks for other negotiations. Even though the more militant BC Nurses Union and the ever-tough BC Teachers Federation have yet to begin bargaining, the contracts, if approved, are a big coup for a government obsessed with keeping costs low.
Still, it’s not hard to understand why union negotiators in B.C. opted for these long, cheap deals. They represent security. There are no rollbacks. Elsewhere, public sector unions are under heavy attack, their benefits and pensions a target for many governments. It’s in keeping with the race-to-the-bottom attitude that seems to believe forcing wages and pensions lower will somehow boost the economy. Hello? Scrounging for pennies, er nickels, is the new reality. Look around.
Public workers targeted across Canada
In oil-rich Alberta, where public sector strikes are already illegal, the government has moved to strip the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees of its right to binding arbitration as well. Even more draconian is a provision making union leaders liable for large fines if they even call for a strike.
This throwback to the reactionary, anti-union days of W.A.C. Bennett in British Columbia 50 years ago is brought to you by Premier Alison Redford. Yes, the same Alison Redford who once worked with Nelson Mandela to improve human rights in Africa. “He taught me that the best advice comes from people who have been working in the trenches,” said Redford, on the great man’s death. Hmm….
And in Ottawa, Treasury Board President Tony Clement continues on his merry, anti-union way, with barely a squeak of public concern. At a recent meeting with Clement, Robyn Benson, head of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, asked for union consultation on the government’s plans to gut their bargaining rights. She also requested the minister stop calling them “union bosses,” a pejorative term belying the fact labour leaders are democratically elected and responsible to their membership. Afterwards, Tony Clement, who supports right-to-work laws, tweeted that Benson wanted “co-governance with Parliament. Takes ‘union boss’ to a whole new level.” Thanks, Tony.
He is sponsoring legislation giving the government power to decide who can and can’t go on strike. It would also compel arbitrators to bring in wage settlements based on the government’s “ability to pay.” So much for free collective bargaining, even for mild, federal unions who hardly ever go on strike.
The media has tended to characterize this as “a battle” with labour. It’s hardly a battle when one side has all the guns and ammunition and the other side little more than the right to say “We object,” as their forces are mowed down.
Welcome to the new reality. It’s a funny old world.
Source: j-source.ca
Black Press Media has shut down the Abbotsford/Mission Times, a little more than a month after purchasing the B.C. paper from Glacier Media. The company also took down the newspaper’s website and closed its Twitter account.
When asked why the company was shutting down a newspaper it considered a worthy purchase in October, Rick O’Connor, president and CEO of Black Media, told J-Source the newspaper was losing “too much revenue” and not making enough money on advertisements.
“The losses were far greater than we had expected,” he said. “We’re not miracle workers … there is only so much we can do.”
O’Connor said most of the Times staff took the severance package offered by Glacier Media, leaving only four of the original 13 staff. “You can’t do the same work when a significant majority is gone.” Black Press will discuss future options for the remaining staff within the company.
As part of the sale from Glacier Media, Black Press also purchased the Chilliwack Times, which O’Connor said continues to operate for now alongside its competitor, Chilliwack Progress. He would not, however, comment on its financial viability.
“It was our belief that it didn’t make sense for readers to receive two community newspapers in the Abbotsford, Mission and Chilliwack markets on the same publishing days with tremendous duplication of content,” said Randy Blair, president of the Black Press Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island divisions, in a statement. “In light of this, Black Press has harmonized publication days in the Chilliwack market so that the Chilliwack Times and the Chilliwack Progress will publish on different days.”
Black Press also owns the Abbotsford News, which will continue to publish.
Source: thetyee.ca
Talks between the company that publishes the Vancouver Sun and Province and the union that represents their workers broke down after two days of negotiations earlier this month over contracting out of the printing of both newspapers.
That increases the likelihood of a labour dispute in a year’s time over Pacific Newspaper Group’s plan to have outside companies handle the printing.
“They can lock us out or we can go on strike,” said Unifor Local 2000 vice-president Gary Engler. “Of course, we have the right to picket and all of those sorts of things.”
Postmedia Network recently announced it will sell the Surrey property where its printing plant is located and either contract out the printing or build a new plant that would require fewer workers. The company imposed a Nov. 18 deadline for an agreement to be reached on staffing levels for a new plant, but a Unifor release called the company’s demands “too extreme” for the union to accept.
“Among other conditions, the company insists on the right to choose from among our current members as to who would be able to work at a new plant,” it stated. “It was estimated that only about one-quarter of our current Kennedy Heights members would be asked to work at the new facility.”
The union also claims the company offered far less severance pay for displaced press operators than it has offered its editorial and business staff under a Voluntary Staff Reduction Plan.
The collective agreement between Unifor and Postmedia’s subsidiary Pacific Newspaper Group expires on Nov. 30, 2014. Engler said the company suggested more talks in January, but the Unifor release called agreement “highly unlikely.” PNG announced it has already contracted with Transcontinental Printing to handle printing in the event that agreement cannot be reached with Unifor on staffing levels for a new plant.
Engler said the recent talks revealed that only the Sun would be printed at Transcontinental’s plant on Annacis Island, however, with another printing company handling the Province. The current collective agreement prevents contracting out, and its provisions would be extended under the B.C. Labour Code in the event of a strike or lockout.
“We know where the printing is going,” noted Engler. “Transcontinental is unionized as well. Where the Province is going is a non-union plant.”
Meanwhile, another large U.S. hedge fund has acquired a major ownership interest in Postmedia. Silver Point Capital recently bought a 19 per cent stake in the company, which makes it the second largest owner of Postmedia behind New York-based GoldenTree Asset Management, which owns about 35 per cent.
Canada’s largest chain of dailies, which was founded in the 19 century by the Southam family, was bought out of the bankruptcy of Canwest Global Communications in 2010 by a group of its creditors, with financial backing from several U.S. hedge funds.
Vancouver journalist Marc Edge is a frequent contributor to The Tyee.
– See more at: http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/2013/11/26/Postmedia-Union-Talks/#sthash.4D7Zafpj.dpuf
Source: inma.org
When considering the future of print, remember that 80% of Canadians read newspaper content every week. The number of those who only access this content through digital formats is rising, of course. But one thing remains consistent: the belief that newspapers are a credible and comprehensive source of information.
Source: mashable.com
Over the past eight years, newspapers have seen budgets cut and newsrooms shrink as readers — and more crucially, advertisers — have shifted from print to digital devices. To combat those shifts, publishers have drastically cut costs, reduced (or in some cases, completely halted) publication of their print editions, redirecting resources to digital editions and ad products instead.
Source: j-source.ca
Postmedia Network’s B.C. papers have suffered a spate of bad news recently—a large number of employees took buyouts from The Province and the Vancouver Sun, and there were rumours the two brands would be merged into one newspaper. Then there was that memo from Pacific News Group president Gordon Fisher that riled many, putting two floors of its building up for lease and the sale of its B.C. printing plant.
“PNG has been in the news in Vancouver this year for a variety of, shall I say, wrong reasons,” The Province’s editor-in-chief Wayne Moriarty told J-Source.
Now, the two newspapers want to “reset” the conversation. Collectively, 86 per cent of Lower Mainland adults read the Sun and The Province every month. That’s a 10.3 per cent increase from a year ago, according to statistics in an editorial note Moriarty wrote.
Source: j-source.ca
The union representing Globe and Mail employees said the company must stop pointing the finger at them for its financial struggles.
“There is no denying The Globe is struggling, perhaps failing financially. We get it. But a blame-shifting approach won’t fix The Globe’s very serious problems,” said Sue Andrew, unit chair at the Southern Ontario Newsmedia Guild in a memo obtained by Christine Dobby at the Financial Post. “Characterizing Globe employees as having a sense of entitlement and suggesting that the collective agreement is somehow impeding the company’s success is negative, confrontational and counterproductive.”