Sister local fights Torstar plan to ship ad makeup jobs overseas

Compositors’ jobs are being shipped overseas in the latest newspaper industry scheme to boost profits.
Torstar announced plans last week to export 20 ad makeup jobs at the Hamilton Spectator and Kitchener-Waterloo Record to India and the Philippines. This comes on the heels of similar moves by Canwest at the Calgary Herald, Ottawa Citizen and Regina Leader-Post.
Our sister local, the Southern Ontario Newsmedia Guild (CEP Local 87M), is fighting to overturn the plan of Metroland West Media Group, a division of Torstar, which was announced at the start of bargaining for advertising employees at the Spectator.
“We are deeply disappointed Metroland is willing to give away jobs of the highest calibre, not just to another company, but to another continent,” said Paul Morse, Hamilton Spectator unit chair for Local 87-M, in a press release.
Local 87-M, which represents 36 media outlets across Ontario including the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star, is calling on Metroland to maintain jobs in Canada.
“It is hypocritical of Metroland to expect advertisers to spend their money locally while it spends its money abroad,” said Robert Reid, unit chair at The Record. “We are increasingly shortchanging our readers and our customers in the pursuit of elusive profit margins.
“This is hard to swallow when we see corporations use one hand to deliver pink slips and, at the same time, use the other to award multimillion-dollar golden parachutes.”
Morse’s comments about “golden parachutes” refer to recent payments made by Torstar to departing executives.
Torstar has said that its plan to move jobs overseas was not yet final. Perhaps if the company hears enough outrage from union supporters and concerned Canadians it will reconsider.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Local News.