10 AUGUST 2006

Storm clouds gathering at several Osprey dailies
Company digging in heels on job security, decent pay increases
as negotiations, conciliation fail to achieve agreements

Kingston Typographical Union | TNG Canada Local 30204
North Bay Newspaper Guild | TNG Canada Local 30241
Northern Ontario Newspaper Guild | TNG Canada Local 30232
Sault Ste Marie Typographical Union | TNG Canada Local 30746
St. Catharines Typographical Union | TNG Canada Local 30416

The desultory summertime pace of negotiation and conciliation at several of Osprey Media's newspapers is threatening to blow up into an early fall thunderstorm.

Common to the ongoing bargaining at dailies in Kingston, St. Catharines and Sudbury, is the employer's refusal to grant workers job security or meaningful pay raises. Management is expected to follow suit at the Sault Star and North Bay Nugget, both of which have contracts expiring this year.

Osprey has laid off dozens of long-time employees since last fall and outsourced the jobs to call centres or one of its non-union plants. The company, now operating as an income trust, dominates the small-town Ontario newspaper industry with its more than 60 publications. Although Osprey claims the cuts are chain-wide cost-saving measures, all or nearly all of the people let go were in unionized positions.

The Kingston Typographical Union, which represents workers in all departments at the Whig-Standard, has mediation scheduled for the last week of September. That was arranged after two days of conciliation in June achieved very little. If mediation fails, the parties will be in a legal strike/lockout position by early October.

While there has never been a strike at the Kingston Whig-Standard, there have been labour disruptions at three other Osprey dailies. Guild members were locked out for three months at the Sudbury Star, returning to work in late January 2003. A strike at the Cobourg Daily Star and Port Hope Evening Guide, which began in mid-October 2002, lasted until the end of February 2003.

Recently, at the request of the Guild, TNG Canada Director Arnold Amber, lawyer Nelson Roland and Staff Representative David Esposti met with Osprey CEO Michael Sifton and two other senior company representatives to talk about developing a better relationship between management and the union. Following an exchange of views by both sides, the meeting did not reach any go-ahead commitments.

"This is the second time we met with Sifton," says Amber. "If anything, he was even more vague than he was at the meeting three years ago about building a relationship which would prevent further labour strife at Osprey. He still maintains that policies regarding each paper are determined locally."

In Kingston, where negotiations began in January, "job security language has been flatly rejected by the employer," says David Wilson, TNG Canada Staff Representative. Management is also being stingy with its proposals for pay increases and is resisting the union's attempts to consolidate the six bargaining units into three.

Osprey, says Wilson, should not underestimate the resolve of its employees in Kingston. In March, five of the six bargaining units voted 100-per-cent in favour of taking strike action if necessary. That level of support for the bargaining team was reiterated in July during a negotiations update session with members.

Similar scenarios are playing out at the St. Catharines Standard and the Sudbury Star, says Staff Rep David Esposti.

Employees in circulation, classified and composing at the St. Catharines Standard voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action on June 28, he says. Conciliation is scheduled for Sept. 13 and 14, but he's not optimistic it will resolve the job security and monetary issues that have been on the table since talks began in the spring.

There is a great deal of bitterness in St. Catharines, where Osprey has axed 22 unionized workers despite a no-contracting-out clause in their contract, and outsourced the jobs to its call centres in Sarnia and Niagara Falls or to the non-union Welland Tribune. The St. Catharines Typographical Union's membership has been reduced to 21, says its president, Brenda Halden.

At the Sudbury Star, where the collective agreement expired May 1, a first round of talks was held July 24, 25 and 26. The Local has already applied for conciliation even though a second round of negotiations is set for the end of this month.

Esposti says the Northern Ontario Newspaper Guild, which represents about 52 workers in all departments at the paper, is focused primarily on job security. The Star has had its share of job losses, too. Osprey laid off nine pressmen last year, closed the Star pressroom and now prints the paper at the North Bay Nugget.

The North Bay Newspaper Guild, which represents employees at the Nugget, will be entering negotiations towards the end of this year when its contract expires.

The Sault Ste Marie Typographical Union, whose contract expires at the end of August, will soon be in negotiations. That Local lost a member in June, when the Sault Star laid off a classified advertising employee.