17 January 2007

Long-time president passes torch
at 3-member Local

Guelph Typographical Union | TNG Canada Local 30391

Technological change over three decades might have whittled the membership from 30 to three, but the Guelph Typograpical Union has every intention of soldiering on.

Leslie Angst, who has worked as a compositor at the Guelph Mercury for 20 years, is taking up the torch from long-time Local president Darrel Storey, who is planning to retire from the daily newspaper in 2009. He says he wanted to step down now so that he could ease the new president into the position while he was still around to offer advice and guidance.

Angst, who negotiated the current collective agreement along with TNG Staff Representative David Esposti, says she will also have the assistance of another executive veteran, Bob Henry, who has been Secretary-Treasurer of the Local for at least 20 years.

The five-year contract, which expires March 31, 2010, was the first one ever to contain a cost-of-living clause; it has provided the three members with annual salary increases near the three-per-cent maximum, says Storey.

With the exception of a two-year hiatus in the late '70s, Storey has been president of the Local since 1973. He was elected to the position two years after being hired by the Mercury as a compositor.

These days, there is no composing room. Storey and Angst, now known as "ad builders," do their work on computers. Henry works in the pre-press department.

Storey, who oversaw some of the most tumultuous decades in the GTU's history (it was chartered on July 1, 1900), says that, in addition to the technological changes that took newspaper production from hot type to cold, then on to computerized pagination, the 153-year-old Mercury has had numerous owners since he came on board.

In 1971, when he left the Peterborough Examiner for the Guelph Mercury, both dailies were owned by Thomson Newspapers Corp. In 1995, the Mercury was sold to Conrad Black's Hollinger Inc., then was briefly owned in 1999 by Quebecor's Sun Media chain. The current owner is Torstar Corporation, through its Metroland division.