CEP Local 87-M members have been strike against Brabant Newspapers and TORSTAR in Hamilton for nearly six months
SUPPORT THE STRIKING WORKERS!
Email, fax and phone the Toronto Star to say that you will support a boycott of TORSTAR products, and demanding that they ensure that a fair agreement is negotiated for these workers
Some 60 press, pre-press and inserting workers at weekly newspapers in Hamilton, just down the road from Toronto, have been on strike since Dec 6. At issue are wages (these are the lowest paid workers in the industry), benefits, and most crucially, the rights of women to equal pay. All of the inserters are women, and the employer refuses to acknowledge their pay equity complaint, has told them they are overpaid, (at barely above legal minimum wage) and has offered them less than male-dominated jobs.
The once left-leaning Toronto Star has become a business bully in the past few years, finally culminating in this bitter strike. The strike has raised the awareness of the degree to which media monopolies can control the news, and can control media workers. There have been NO reports on the strike in the papers on strike, and only two very small pieces in the local Hamilton daily, which has the same owner. The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP), who represent the striking workers, have twice leafleted the entire city of 490,000 in Hamilton to alert the public to our struggle.
The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP) has now taken the unprecedented step of asking the Canadian Labour Congress to institute a formal consumer boycott of TORSTAR products in Hamilton, including the weeklies (Brabant newspapers) the daily (the Hamilton Spectator), the Toronto Star, and Harlequin Books. TORSTAR, the parent corporation of the Toronto Star, owns and controls virtually all the newspaper media to the west of Toronto, including Hamilton, which is a proud steel town on the shores of lake Ontario. These TORSTAR products are mostly unionized, with the CEP representing the bulk of those workers. A boycott will surely hurt the bottom line of the publishers, but many fear they will retaliate against striking CEP members.
TORSTAR has hired teams of scab labour, who are put up in local hotels, and arrive in blacked-out vans, and who get paid more than twice what the strikers made. TORSTAR had been ordering a female manager to cook the scabs’ meals, but has since hired a chef for them.
The CEO in Hamilton is a woman named Jagoda Pike. Her previous claim to fame was contracting out all of the newspaper carriers of the Toronto Star, after the CEP organized them. Since taking over the Brabant Chain in 2003, she has fired the 600 children who used to deliver the papers, replaced them with the down and out of Hamilton who will work for less than minimum wage, laid off whole departments of the Brabant papers, and now decided that women inserters are not to be treated equitably.
The head of TORSTAR is Robert Prichard. He recently gave himself a 13% raise, a raise which was 3 times what the 60 workers are seeking in total per year!
YOU can help, by e-mailing or writing to TORSTAR, and telling Mr. Prichard that you will support the boycott of Torstar products, and demanding that he ensure that a fair agreement is negotiated for these workers.
The addresses are:
Robert Prichard
Torstar
Corporate Office
One Yonge Street,
Toronto, Canada
M5E 1P9
Telephone: (416) 869-4010
Fax: (416) 869-4183
Email: torstar@torstar.ca
Jagoda Pike
City Media
44 Frid Street
Hamilton, ON
L8N 3G3
Telephone: 905-526-3431
Email: jpike@thespec.com
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BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
HAMILTON: CEP Local 87-M on strike against Brabant Newspapers
Workers organized by the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union Local 87-M (Southern Ontario Newsmedia Guild) have been on strike against their employer, Brabant Newspapers for since December 6th, 2004.
Brabant publishes the Hamilton Mountain News, Stoney Creek News, Ancaster News, the Dundas Star, and the Real Estate News, and is owned by CityMedia Group, part of the Torstar media conglomerate. Torstar owns all of the weekly and daily newspapers in the Greater Hamilton Area, except the student newspapers of McMaster University and Mohawk College and View magazine.
Striking workers include the inserters, press operators, ad builders and pre-production staff at the newspaper, as well as the press operators at Hamilton Web Printing (which is the unionized print shop where NEW SOCIALIST magazine had been printed prior to the strike).
These workers have seen their wages fall far below industry standards at a time when newspapers are making record profits - and now management is even demanding concessions on benefits! Further, very serious pay equity issues are on the table: women inserters earn $1.52 less than men working in a comparable position.
CityMedia took over Brabant in June 2003 – the fifth owner in 12 years – and instituted major changes that are contributing to the bitterness of the current labour dispute. These included the elimination of 600 paper routes held primarily by children, and the transfer of the circulation and classified advertising departments to the Spectator.
The changes helped boost CityMedia revenues $7.7 million in the first half of 2004 when the company announced that “all of the growth came from the Brabant, Fairway and Hamilton Web operations.” The company recently reported a third quarter profit increase of 53%.
Click here for up-to-date information on the strike.
SUPPORT THE PICKET LINE!
The picket line is set up at 333 Arvin Avenue, Stoney Creek. They picket 24-5. To get there take the QEW towards Niagara Falls. The 3rd exit past the Burlington Skyway is Centennial Parkway (Hwy 20). At that exit go STRAIGHT along the south service road, about 2 km to Green Road. Turn south (right) along Green Road. Over the tracks, the first stop sign is ARVIN. Turn left on Arvin. The picket line is ½ km on your left.
There is another small picket line (M-F 9-4) at 47 Cootes Dr., Dundas. That is the Editorial offices of the newspapers. To get there, take 403 into Hamilton, take the HWY 8 WEST exit. Turn left at the top of the off-ramp. Take that road (HWY 8) about 2 km to just past McMaster University. Cootes Dr. is a ramp on your right. Follow Cootes along about 2 km to #47, which is a little strip plaza just past the beer store and across from the Canadian Tire.