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06 March 2007
Conciliator's report sets stage
for
strike/lockout at Halifax daily
Halifax Typographical Union |
TNG Canada
Local 30130
A conciliator's no-board report issued
today declares that contract negotiations between Halifax
Herald Ltd. and its pressroom workers have reached
an impasse and opens the door to a strike or lockout
on the first day of spring.
Darren Pittman, president of the
Halifax Typographical Union, says the only advance
made in four days of conciliation that wrapped up Friday
was a "best offer" from the company, which
was an increase of .09 per cent in its salary proposals.
"It was met with anger," by
the bargaining team, says Pittman, noting that the
14 employees haven't had a salary increase in 13
years. The union is seeking a catch-up increase of
eight per cent in the first year of a four-year contract,
followed by three annual increases of 4.5 per cent.
The employer, says Pittman, is proposing to convert
an annual bonus of $1040 to base salary, increase the
amount to $2,000, and top up the new salary base with
a 1.75 per cent increase in each of the four years.
The Local president expects
there will be a "continuation
of conciliation" (mediation in other provinces)
in an 11th-hour attempt to reach an agreement before
the midnight March 20 deadline.
The family-owned company issued a news release today
saying both sides have invested a lot of time and effort
in negotiations and that it is attempting to reach
a settlement with its employees. It added, however,
that it would continue to publish the Halifax
ChronicleHerald in the event of a labour dispute.
Pittman says he wonders "how
they're going to manage to print a paper without
any pressmen."
Wages and early retirement
provisions remain as the major outstanding issues
for the pressroom workers, whose previous contract — a 10-year agreement — expired
last July 1. During those 10 years, says Pittman, they
modernized the operation when a new press was installed
and won high praise from management for their efforts.
In opening negotiations last year to renew the collective
agreement, the workers were stunned to learn that the
company, which publishes the highest circulation (120,000)
daily newspaper in the Atlantic provinces, was seeking
major concessions.
When talks in the fall made it apparent the company
was going to stick to its guns, the workers voted unanimously
in October to give their bargaining team a strike mandate.
During bargaining in December and at the outset of
conciliation in January, management negotiator Don
MacDougall, who is chairman of the board, began threatening
to lock out the workers.
Pittman says the employees are standing firm on the
wages and early retirement provisions and are quite
prepared to strike or weather a lockout.
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