12 December 2005

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

Guild members at newspapers owned by Osprey Media Group are joining forces to fight the company's outsourcing of local jobs to centralized call centres staffed by low-paid part-time workers who receive no benefits.

TNG Canada/CWA recently brought together in Sudbury delegates from a half dozen Locals to develop strategies to combat the chain's elimination of classified advertising and reader sales and service jobs at their newspapers. The Guild estimates 100 jobs could be lost at nine of the 10 Osprey dailies where the union has members.

A grievance has just been filed at the St. Catharines Standard, where two-thirds of classified advertising employees were notified in early October that they would be out of a job at the end of the month. Osprey is transferring their work to a call centre it set up in Sarnia.

Brenda Halden, president of the St. Catharines Typographical Union and chair of TNG Canada's "Osprey Caucus," which was activated at the Sudbury meeting, said some of the laid-off employees have worked for the newspaper for more than 30 years.

Similar layoff notices were issued to employees in the classified department at the Kingston Whig-Standard. Debbie Newton, president of the Kingston Typographical Union, says the axe is also soon going to fall in the Reader Sales & Service department. That work will be transferred to another call centre Osprey established in Niagara Falls in early August.

The TNG Canada Local at the Sudbury Star was recently informed there will be layoffs in the spring. The Guild plans to file a grievance there as well.

Arnold Amber, Director of TNG Canada/CWA, has circulated a letter to members at seven Locals, notifying them of the "radical change in the way that the Osprey chain does its business, which will affect you as an employee, either directly or indirectly."

The call centres "take full-time jobs away from the communities, which have long supported their local newspapers, to boost Osprey's profits."

"People wanting to buy an ad or find out why their paper didn't arrive want to talk to someone they trust from their community, not a stranger who may not even know where their city is," says Amber.

"A local newspaper is not just about covering stories and events. It's about being a strong part of the community," he points out. "... It's very short sighted for a newspaper to cut itself off from its community base. If Osprey loses readers and advertisers, all departments will have their budgets cut."

The Osprey Caucus expects to launch a campaign early in 2006 to garner public support and pressure the company to honour its commitment to those communities served by its newspapers.

Osprey owns 21 daily and 37 community newspapers that penetrate 50 markets in Ontario, but it is uncertain how many or which of those papers will lose jobs to call centres.

The outsourcing of local jobs flies in the face of the three-year-old company's boast on its web site that "Our local relationship and commitment to our communities is at the core of who we are and what we do."

Osprey acknowledges that many of the newspapers it purchased from Hollinger Inc. or CanWest Global Corporation "have been serving their communities for over a hundred years."