TNG Canada: Five-city protests ruffle feathers of Osprey Media brass

PHOTO: Michael Purvis

Elaine Della-Mattia, Vice-president of the Sault Ste Marie Typographical Union, leads members in an information picket at the Sault Star on Wednesday. About 20 employees were protesting Osprey Media's outsourcing of local newspaper jobs to call centres in Niagara Falls and Sarnia.

16 February 2006

Five-city protests ruffle feathers of Osprey brass

Dozens of Guild members stage information pickets
to protest job outsourcing to call centres

OTTAWA | TNG Canada/CWA

Scores of Guild members took to information picket lines in four Ontario cities Wednesday in a noon-hour protest against Osprey Media's outsourcing of daily newspaper jobs to call centres.

The Keep Our Newspapers Local campaign, announced in a TNG Canada/CWA news release Monday, has attracted lots of media coverage, ruffled the feathers of Osprey brass, and continues to win broad public support.

Guild campaign targets Osprey's elimination of local newspaper jobs

Locals team up to fight outsourcing of newspaper jobs to call centres

Osprey gutting daily newspaper's classified advertising department

Director alerts members to call-centres plan

Presidents of TNG Canada Locals in North Bay, St. Catharines, Sault Ste Marie and Sudbury were ecstatic over the turnout on the picket lines, with numbers ranging from 20 to more than 100. At the Kingston Whig-Standard, where Guild negotiators are fighting company demands that it be able to outsource editorial work through unlimited use of freelancers, editorial staff decided to withhold bylines in protest and as a way of showing support for their fellow union members at other Osprey daily newspapers.

"I'm overjoyed with the participation of the Locals," says TNG Canada Staff Rep David Wilson, who is currently assisting the Kingston Typographical Union with contract negotiations.

The campaign is the first co-ordinated action taken by TNG Canada's 'Osprey Caucus', formed in the fall in the wake of layoffs at the St. Catharines Standard and in Kingston. Osprey Media eliminated the local newspaper jobs after it set up call centres in Niagara Falls and Sarnia and staffed them with part-time, low-paid workers to handle classified advertising and customer (circulation) service. Other Locals have been notified that more job cuts are coming this spring.

TNG Canada estimates that as many as 100 jobs could be lost at the nine Osprey papers where the Guild has members in those departments. It is unknown how many jobs will be eliminated at 12 other Osprey-owned dailies.

David Esposti, a TNG Canada Staff Rep who joined two dozen workers on the picket line at the Sault Star, observes that the campaign has raised morale among Guild members at Osprey papers. "They have come together. They have found there are a number of issues that they have in common."

It was a rare taste of rebellion in the ranks for Michael Sifton, who formed Osprey Media Group in 2001 after buying 29 newspapers from Conrad Black's Hollinger empire. In 2003, another 30 newspapers were purchased from CanWest Global.

The CEO told employees in a memo circulated yesterday afternoon that the traditional way of doing business is gone and they have to adapt to change and evolution. He makes no mention of the protests, but notes that "We must look for ways to do things differently within the business in order to keep the business financially strong ..."

"One such initiative is the addition of our classified sales center (sic). This is just a part of a strategy to meet advertiser demands, defend our classified franchise and at the same time evolve it and grow the revenue," the memo says. Then, in what is widely perceived as a slap in the face to experienced, long-time employees, Sifton continues: "We now have the ability with this sales center (sic) to augment the good work done by local on-site classified sales people by having a solid team of phone sales people who are adept at selling our many classified "up-sell" features as well as our multi-market advertisement opportunities."

Osprey newspaper readers, advertisers and employees responded within hours of the campaign's launch on Monday, visiting the web site to send electronic cards pledging their support and spreading the word to people in other communities served by an Osprey newspaper. The Locals are also collecting paper pledge forms that have been distributed in their communities along with posters publicizing the Keep Our Newspapers Local campaign.

On Tuesday, two of the Osprey publishers sought to squelch the planned protests. Dan Johnson at the North Bay Nugget and David Kilgour at the Sudbury Star held what Esposti describes as "captive audience meetings" and made it clear they were angry about the Guild campaign.

A non-bylined article — under the headline "Osprey Media committed to Sudbury: Star publisher / Responds to protest of job cuts by union" — appears on the front page of today's Sudbury Star. It quotes Kilgour extensively, singing the company's praises, but contains no comment from the Northern Ontario Newspaper Guild.

In North Bay, where Johnson refused on Tuesday to publish anything about the campaign, a reporter and photographer were dispatched to cover the event after other media showed up at the picket line on Wednesday.