2016.02.09 | CWA Canada Local 30130 | Halifax Typographical Union
O'Hanlon challenges CEO to debate Halifax strike
CWA Canada President Martin O’Hanlon has challenged Mark Lever, the CEO of Halifax Herald Ltd., to a public debate about why he forced his editorial employees onto a picket line.
The 61 members of the Halifax Typographical Union (HTU) — CWA Canada Local 30130 — had no choice but to strike on Jan. 23 after the publisher of the Chronicle Herald moved to lock them out. The company has refused to meaningfully engage in bargaining since talks began in the fall, tabling a take-it-or-leave it offer that would have gutted the collective agreement.
Lever, son-in-law of the late Graham Dennis, the highly respected owner of the Herald, has been undermining the award-winning daily newspaper’s credibility. He intends to slash staff and news coverage and further increase “sponsored content” in Nova Scotia’s ‘paper of record’ that was once the pride of the Dennis family.
“On three occasions since Jan. 28, you have used the pages of the Herald in a sad attempt to justify why you forced your ‘valued’ newsroom staff onto the streets,” O’Hanlon wrote in an open letter to Lever.
“More troubling, you refuse to allow any rebuttal, rejecting the (HTU’s) request to run a Letter to the Editor, a shocking breach of journalistic ethics.
“By ignoring a basic principle of journalism — allowing both sides of a story to be heard — you have abandoned any premise of journalistic integrity and turned the Herald into a propaganda rag, soiling the proud history of the paper and betraying the legacy of Graham Dennis,” wrote O’Hanlon.
“Since you will not allow a debate in the pages of the paper … I challenge you to face me in a public debate in Halifax so that the people of Nova Scotia can hear both sides of the story in the labour dispute and draw their own conclusions.”
Lever has not responded to O’Hanlon’s challenge. Nor has he granted interviews to various media outlets in the Maritimes.