2016.03.14 | CWA Canada Local 30130 | Halifax Typographical Union
Support grows for striking Halifax journalists
as labour groups join forces to pressure Herald
Support from across Nova Scotia is growing for 59 Chronicle Herald newsroom workers entering the eighth week of a strike to defend local journalism.
Despite recent moves by CWA Canada and its Local, the Halifax Typographical Union (HTU), to ratchet up pressure on the employer, the Herald rejected an overture last week from the HTU to return to the bargaining table.
“It appears the Herald has a short-term plan or strategy in place that does not include professional newsroom reporters, photographers, editors and support staff going back to work anytime soon,” HTU President Ingrid Bulmer said in a news release.
On International Women’s Day, March 8, the HTU called on the Herald to mark the occasion by dropping at least one of the 1,200 changes it insists must be made to the collective agreement: elimination of a clause that guarantees gender-based wage equality.
The Herald’s president, Mark Lever, who married newspaper-heiress publisher Sarah Dennis, has refused to budge on his unreasonable demands, which would gut the collective agreement and effectively bust the union.
On the same day that NDP leader Gary Burrill and dozens of labour activists turned out for rallies on HTU picket lines in Halifax and Sydney, CWA Canada President Martin O’Hanlon announced that it was time to take the gloves off.
The campaign to pressure the Herald to engage in meaningful bargaining is three-pronged:
- An official boycott of Herald advertisers;
- A series of radio ads featuring the voices of striking newsroom workers asking readers to cancel subscriptions;
- Chronicle Herald freelancers are being invited to write for Local Xpress, the online news site run by the striking journalists. CWA Canada will be paying the freelancers.
“We are doing what we can to get a deal,” O’Hanlon said at a news conference that attracted a lot of media attention. “I want to assure the people of Nova Scotia that our members are journalists who want nothing more than to do journalism. They don’t want to hurt the business, but this company has been unmovable and demanding outrageous concessions, and we are fighting back.”
Heavyweight labour organizations are backing the boycott and launching social media campaigns of their own to support the striking journalists.
“There’s no way you’re going to be starved out on this picket line. There’s no way you’re going to be out here without support,” Tony Tracy of the Canadian Labour Congress told HTU members at a picket-line rally.
The Halifax-Dartmouth & District Labour Council said it would work closely with the HTU in calling on union and community members to boycott all companies that continue to advertise in the Herald.
The HTU has been posting an updated advertiser boycott list every Monday on its Facebook page, which is attracting growing numbers of supporters.
Nova Scotia Federation of Labour President Danny Cavanagh, which represents 70,000 workers in the province, including 45,000 in the Halifax region, said that “businesses need to understand the importance of unionized workers … and the support that we give one another.”
“This is not only union-busting,” said Cavanagh, “it is deliberate behaviour by Herald management that will destroy quality, award-winning journalism in Nova Scotia.
“We call on advertisers to think twice before giving money to advertise in the Chronicle Herald, a company whose end game is no union, cheap labour and no benefits.
“Support real news by real journalists and don’t do business with a company managed by a CEO who has already bankrupted two companies and seems determined to make it three.”
Joan Jessome, president of the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union, the province’s largest public-sector union, told the striking workers: “We in the labour movement rely on journalism. We can’t do our jobs, we can’t deliver our services without you in the workplace.”
“We see this as a fight for quality,” O’Hanlon said at the news conference. “If we lose this fight, you’re never going to have a quality paper again; you’ll have cut-rate wages and a bad product.”
“Who is going to do the investigative journalism, track City Hall? Journalism and democracy, that’s ultimately what this fight is about, it’s not just about dollars and cents.”
For interviews or more information, contact Martin O'Hanlon (email / 613-820-8460).