CanWest's classified ads plan
makes
job security chief concern
in Montreal bargaining
Montreal Newspaper Guild | CWA Canada
Local 30111
Job security trumps salary increases
next month when the bargaining team representing 45
classified advertising workers at The
Gazette in Montreal
resumes contract talks.
David Wilson, the CWA Canada staff
representative who has been involved in the negotiations,
says changes to classifieds soon to be imposed by newspaper
owner CanWest Global Corporation "will have a
huge impact" on the department. Currently being
test marketed in Edmonton and Saskatoon is new software
for a newspaper's web site that would allow customers
to place an ad and pay for it online.
"Given the direction that CanWest wants to go,
(the bargaining unit's priority) has to be job security," says
Wilson.
In the current contract, which
was imposed by an arbitrator after three years of
bargaining failed to produce a first collective agreement,
is language — already
upheld by an arbitrator — that protects workers'
jobs if they are threatened by technological change,
says Wilson.
That management will be gunning for the job-protection
language was evident during three days of bargaining
in January, he notes.
Anyone hired since Dec. 16, 2003 (when the bargaining
unit won certification) is not covered by the clause
and would not be protected, which could leave almost
half of the department's employees vulnerable, says
Wilson.
Members of the unit are also seeking a salary increase.
Their first, imposed contract which ran from June 22,
2007 to the end of the year, had provided a combined
increase of about 10 per cent over three years, retroactive
to January 2004.