09 September 2003

Showdown in Moncton

Contract proposal turns pacifists into 'angry mob'

Moncton Typographical Union | TNG Canada Local 30636

David Esposti is spitting words into his cell phone. Actually, he's YELLING them. And he's not just trying to rise above the din of the diner where he's interspersing his breakfast order with a rant aimed at the publisher of the Times & Transcript in Moncton, New Brunswick.

"... a vicious, vicious, VICIOUS proposal on the table ..." David Esposti TNG Canada Eastern Staff Rep

Victor Mlodecki has him fuming over "a vicious, vicious, VICIOUS proposal on the table" that would basically "gut the contract" at the newspaper owned by Atlantic Canada's industrialist Irving family through Brunswick News Inc.

The TNG Canada Eastern Staff Rep says the initial – and only – round of contract talks occurred in mid-August. The meeting lasted three hours and ended with the union team telling the employer to make application for a conciliator. It was clear there would be no point in talking further. (In New Brunswick, a strike vote can be held only after the conciliator's no-board report is issued.)

"Mr. Mlodecki has succeeded in turning a group of pacificists into an angry mob," declares the veteran negotiator.

A decade of relentless pressure and trimming has turned the Local (newsroom, pressroom, mailroom, prepress) into a mere shadow of its former self. The workplace, which has been unionized since the mid-Seventies, boasted almost 100 Guild members 10 years ago. Today, 33 members remain.

Mlodecki, who has a track record for paring workplaces to the bone, cut his teeth with the notoriously tight-fisted Thomson newspaper organization. When he joined Brunswick News, he first tested his methods at the Fredericton Daily Gleaner and then honed them at the Saint John Telegraph-Journal. Now he's turned his sights on Moncton.

"Anywhere Victor goes, trouble follows," intones Esposti.

The publisher tipped his hand when he laid off a handful of pressmen and ran short-staffed for more than a year, waiting for their recall rights to expire. Then he was free to hire new help, but he called them "paper handlers" and is paying them $13 an hour, half the rate a pressman earns. Mlodecki is trying to insert a new classification – paper handlers – in this contract to legitimize the tactic.

The Guild, of course, has filed a formal grievance.

In fact, the Guild has filed "a shitload of grievances and arbitrations" which Mlodecki wants resolved as part of the collective bargaining process, says Esposti with a grunt of derision that clearly communicates: "Fat chance."

The tactic echoes in the newsroom, where the employer wants to have a classification called "page assembler." Translation: Replace copy editors (who also paginate the paper) at half their rate of pay. (Reporters and pressmen, at $900 a week, tend to top the pay scales.)

And that triple time that's currently paid for working a stat holiday? The brass wants it knocked back to 2.5 times regular pay.

In the employer's proposal, any wage increases are "to be determined."

But if management doesn't want to deal with meat at the moment, it is definitely going after the potatoes.

Mlodecki "wants to radically change benefits to the detriment of employees," says Esposti. He ticks off the frontal assault on his fingers:

• Vacation entitlement: Lengthen years of service required to achieve three-, four- and five-week vacations; delete six weeks' vacation altogether.
  
  
• Health & Welfare: An entirely new benefits plan that would offer coverage at gold, silver and bronze levels. The company would pay the premiums for bronze only.
  
  
• Pension Plan. Currently it is a union-negotiated plan under which the employer makes a per-shift contribution. The company wants a Group RRSP under which the employer matches worker contributions up to four per cent. ("In other words," says Esposti, "the worker needs a four-per-cent wage increase just to break even.")

In case there was any doubt that all of this is "an intimidation proposal," says Esposti, he points to management's concession demand that the loser pays the full bill associated with any arbitration. That's in addition, of course, to the standard demand for more Guild exclusions.