15 December 2006

Daily's unionized workers,
community supporters,
run Osprey outsourcing policy out of town

Sault Ste Marie Typographical Union | TNG Canada Local 30746

Having rallied the community troops against Osprey Media's job outsourcing policies, a small Guild Local has been able to beat back the company's attempts to ship their work elsewhere and obtain further concessions.

"It's not the best collective agreement, but there are no takebacks and we did get some improvements," says a happy and relieved Linda Richardson, president of the 35-member Sault Ste Marie Typographical Union.

There was a good turnout for the vote Tuesday night, in which three bargaining units — editorial, advertising, circulation-mailroom — overwhelmingly approved ratification of the deal put before them, she says.

The Sault Star employees, whose contract expired at the end of August, receive a $500 bonus for signing the three-year pact, which gives them annual raises of 2.25, 2.0 and 2.25 per cent.

Additionally, says Richardson, advertising assemblers won an hourly increase on top of the general pay raise; there were improvements in night and split-shift differentials; mileage; and a better severance package.

The bargaining team, following two days of negotiations at the start of November, decided to go directly to conciliation. By the end of the two days with a conciliator on Dec. 7 and 8, Osprey had pulled all takebacks off the table.

The most threatening had been a letter Osprey wanted to impose on the Local, giving the company the ability to transfer or reassign work to other publications or divisions.

Osprey has, for the last year, been axing long-time employees at its unionized Ontario dailies and staffing two call centres it has set up in Sarnia and Niagara Falls with part-time, poorly paid workers who handle circulation and classified advertising for the newspaper chain. Customers are forced to deal with strangers in faraway places who know nothing about their community.

It was the threat of outsourcing of Sault Star jobs that put the community and the municipal council firmly on the union's side.

Richardson is certain that fervent support had a lot to do with the takeback proposals disappearing from the table.

What was really surprising, she notes, is that "We did it in four days. We have a history of taking a long time to settle. I don't remember when we haven't had to go to mediation."

When TNG Canada launched the Keep Our Newspapers Local campaign, and organized a five-city protest last February, the public response in Sault Ste Marie was overwhelming. City council passed a resolution that condemned the cutting of local jobs. Hundreds of Star customers signed e-cards protesting job outsourcing, and other local media weighed in on the side of the union.

But that's only recent history. In the past, before Osprey owned the Sault Star, striking Guild members had the support of many readers and advertisers, who cancelled subscriptions to the newspaper to express their displeasure with management's assault on the union. On another occasion, the Local refused to conduct a strike vote, insisting it wanted to continue providing quality journalism to Sault residents. Again, the public backed them in their quest for a fair contract.