TNG Canada: New Local president says long-term contracts require vigilance in anti-union province

30 November 2006

New Local president says long-term contracts require vigilance in anti-union province

Media & Communications Workers of Alberta | TNG Canada Local 30400

Jack Wilson is back at the helm of his Alberta Local at a key time in the province's boom period.

While the enervated energy sector is bringing great wealth to the prairie province, it also has its downsides for the workaday Guild member. Although their recently renewed six-year contract gives them decent salary increases and improved benefits, members are facing rising prices on consumer goods, through-the-roof costs for housing and a paucity of rental properties.

Reporter Jack Wilson has been on the Alberta Local's executive since the Red Deer Advocate was unionized about 14 years ago.

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And then there's the complacency that sets in when members know they have a long-term deal and figure they don't have to worry about anything contract-wise until 2013. Wrong.

That's exactly when employers attempt to make small inroads on the collective agreement, says Wilson, who was acclaimed to the presidency this fall. He stepped up to the plate when the former president of the Local resigned for personal reasons.

"It was a position that needed to be filled. We couldn't let it remain vacant" until regular elections next fall, he says.

Wilson, who first got elected to the executive of the Local 14 years ago, says he wanted to "get more involved to be vigilant on the contracts."

Most recently serving as a Lodge representative on the executive, he was previously vice-president for 10 years and then president for two years (2002-2004) when the position became vacant.

Wilson, a reporter at the Red Deer Advocate, is also an active member of the Red Deer Labour Council because it's an uphill battle for organized labour in the notoriously anti-union province. "It's difficult in Alberta, which has the most regressive labour laws in the country," he notes.

To that end, Wilson wants to make his Local stronger by organizing schools for shop stewards and to get the membership in general more interested in union matters.

The Local represents more than 250 employees at five newspapers (the Advocate, Lethbridge Herald, Medicine Hat News, the weekly Prairie Post and tri-weekly Central Alberta Life) and Humphries Printing, in Calgary.