Here’s our take on The Gazette’s television commercials. Please share it (on Facebook or in other ways). You can also sign our petition or show your support in other ways.

Here’s our take on The Gazette’s television commercials. Please share it (on Facebook or in other ways). You can also sign our petition or show your support in other ways.

From Brian Dore of Franklin, Ind.:

I’ve often wondered when the non-Montreal-based conglomerate known as CanWest would “sanitize” the Montreal aspect of The Gazette.

A city’s newspaper, regardless of the size of the city, is a “printed spokesperson” for the city! Every city I’ve ever known of has prided itself on its paper - whether or not everyone always fully agreed with some of the content, editorial tone, or coverage of events or news.

The Gazette has been no different, throughout its long history, and has stood the test of time for newspapers, right up there with its francophone counterparts in the print media - Le Devoir, La Presse, and yes even Le Journal de Montréal!

To de-Montrealize the Gazette is not only journalistically wrong, it is a slap in the face to the many loyal Montreal readers who turn to the Gazette as a source of their daily news.

Now living in Indiana for the past 12 years, I cannot get home delivery of The Gazette, as you may well understand! (By the time the paper carrier got here it would be old news!)

But every morning I read it online, in the same way I might read the printed version at the kitchen table, as I did for many years living in Montreal.

I want my daily news of the city of my origins, Montreal, and The Gazette, even online, “delivers”!

Sterilizing the paper, I feel, will lead to “sterilized” news; nothing more than some generic, one-size fits all, attempt at bringing the news to readers.

And to move newspaper jobs, duties, and otherwise out of town, or farmed out overseas ….I consider that a kick in the ass, to go along with the slap in the face, to Montrealers!

I’ve signed the petition.

Vive la Montreal Gazette …. a truly Montreal institution - and leave it where it belongs, CanWest!

This letter was sent to us by Allan Aitken:

A couple of comments: most newspaper owners have a surfeit of ego, and many of them are also bright. The former applies to Leonard, but instead of brains/leadership/competence/etc. he has arrogance and uneasy creditors. As a businessman and a proprietor he’s a dud.

Back in ‘02, when he introduced national editorials, I wrote to complain. He was too busy to reply, bit I thought you might like to see the letter.

“For almost forty years we have subscribed to The Gazette. We read it diligently, and most days enjoy doing so. However, our loyalty is more complex. Because much of The Gazette is written in Montreal, and it is published here, we feel possessive about it. In fact, it is distinctly our paper. Towards the Globe & Mail and the National Post our attitude as readers is less familial.

“Certainly The Gazette has flaws. It also has great strengths, among which we include intelligent and perceptive editorials, provocative columns, and of course the Aislin cartoons. All originate here, and all are components of your local identification.

“The recent decision to run so-called national editorials is baffling. What is the problem that needs to be fixed? The members of your editorial board are manifestly able to produce high quality pieces with contexts ranging from local to international, and from topical to timeless.

“If you believe that the editorials packaged in Winnipeg are better, run them as an addition for a reasonable time and ask your readers which they prefer. We have already decided.

“To retain talented journalists you must allow them to write. If you dislodge them by importing editorials from elsewhere in the owning group, some of them will leave. The result will be lower costs, and if this is the motivation please show us enough respect to come clean.

“For a while longer we will continue to subscribe, at least from habit, but don’t take our attachment for granted.”

Once the petition reaches say 10,000 names I suggest the organizers should describe it in a letter to the editor. If it’s not printed, my next suggestion is to buy a small ad in the Globe. I’d gladly contribute to the cost.

Maintaining local content in the Gazette is far more important to Montreal, and not just to Anglo Montreal, than the once a year car race.

Does what’s happening at The Gazette bother you? Let your voice be heard.

Today, Montreal Gazette employees are launching a petition asking Canwest to stop outsourcing the production of our newspaper outside Quebec as part of the company’s ongoing efforts across Canada to centralize the work performed for its “local” newspapers. We are engaged in a struggle to keep the “Montreal” in the Montreal Gazette and we are asking for your help.

The Montreal Newspaper Guild is currently in contract negotiations with the company, and they are demanding changes that will give them carte blanche to move the production of our newspaper to non-union shops in Hamilton, Ont. and Winnipeg. The company began doing this last year in violation of the contract, and there has already been a noticeable drop in quality.

We believe a local paper should be produced by local, qualified professionals, and that Montrealers want The Gazette’s profits invested in making the newspaper better instead of being shovelled to Canwest’s head office in Winnipeg.

The petition reads as follows:

Montreal Gazette employees are fighting to preserve a vibrant English-language daily newspaper produced in Montreal to serve Montrealers.

The Gazette’s owners, Winnipeg-based Canwest Inc., are moving more and more of The Gazette’s editorial and customer-service operations out of the province of Quebec in violation of the employees’ collective agreements. Now, in contract negotiations, Canwest is demanding the removal of impediments to outsource any remaining work outside of Quebec in order to facilitate lay offs in Montreal.

These moves threaten to diminish Canada’s diversity of voices, whittle down local input and stifle The Gazette’s vital role of covering local news and reflecting Montrealers’ values, concerns and culture. The Gazette has been a proud Montreal institution since 1778 and its readers deserve better than Canwest’s plans to further downsize, centralize and outsource to maximize profits.

The newspaper is operated by Canwest, however it is the public that will ultimately decide whether it will tolerate a “local” newspaper produced elsewhere. Gazette staff are appealing to the Montreal community to tell Canwest to keep the “Montreal” in the Montreal Gazette.

You can sign it here.

Contract talks at The Gazette wrapped up today amid media reports that a senior editor at CanWest’s news service was trying to line up journalism students to file stories to the newspaper in the event of a strike.

David Wilson, the CWA Canada staff representative who is leading the negotiations, says there was some progress over the last two days of bargaining for Editorial and Reader Sales and Service, although the employer still wants to eliminate union jurisdiction over work performed at the CanWest-owned newspaper.

Wilson says two days of conciliation are scheduled to begin Oct. 20, but the parties might be back at the table next week.

Meanwhile, management appears to be making preparations for a work stoppage. Macleans.ca blogger Martin Patriquin reported last night that “CanWest News Service Editor-In-Chief Gerry Nott did the obvious thing: he called up the local university and offered to make scabs out of several journalism students.”

Patriquin notes that “Concordia Department of Journalism Director Mike Gasher, meanwhile, is none too pleased with the soliciting of his young charges.”

He quotes from an email Gasher sent to students:

“It’s come to my attention that some Concordia journalism students have been approached by CanWest to replace regular newsroom staff should there be a strike or lock-out at The Gazette. While that decision is ultimately up to you, I would caution you to think very carefully about accepting such an offer as it is a form of scab labour. Not only could it harm your reputation and the reputation of our department within the journalistic community, it interferes with the ongoing collective bargaining process between Gazette journalists and their employer.”

The CBC has since picked up the story, which is also spreading in the blogosphere.

The executive of the Montreal Newspaper Guild, in a communiqué to members on Wednesday, expressed its “disappointment that the employer has effectively ended talks for a new contract for 37 members of the Advertising unit by tabling (last Friday) what it calls a ‘final offer.’ The Guild has offered to meet with the employer to discuss Advertising issues further. It is important to stress that the employer has not withdrawn its attempt to claw back the union’s jurisdiction over work in advertising by proposing a clause that is so convoluted it would have the same result.”

Members of the three bargaining units, who gave their negotiators a strike mandate on Sept. 28, were advised by the MNG executive to remove all personal effects from the workplace.

A byline strike and work-to-rule campaign went into effect today at The Gazette as staff protested management’s stonewalling in contract negotiations.

Mona Leroux, president of the Montreal Newspaper Guild (MNG), says the negotiating team suggested the job action after talks for Editorial and Reader Sales and Service (RSS) “bogged down” yesterday over the issue of jurisdiction. Two days of bargaining for the Advertising unit commenced this morning.

“Management is refusing to sign a collective agreement that contains jurisdiction language and will not talk about any other issues,” says Leroux.

The CanWest-owned Gazette is attempting to eliminate union jurisdiction over work performed by its employees and wants to merge job functions in some departments.

The bargaining team was handed a powerful strike mandate on Sunday when members voted 100 per cent (Editorial), 98 per cent (RSS) and 59 per cent (Advertising) in favour of doing so.

The 181 employees in the three units have been without a contract since June 1. The union and management have been in a legal position to strike or lock out since early summer.

This is the first time in recent memory that the union has asked its members to work to rule, says Leroux.

The byline strike by journalists is the first since a Quebec labour tribunal, in a landmark ruling five years ago, restored their contractual right to that form of protest. In December 2001, dozens of Gazette journalists attracted international attention — and management’s wrath — when they withdrew their bylines to protest CanWest’s plan to run identical “national editorials” in most of the daily newspapers the corporation acquired with the takeover in 2000 of the Southam empire.

Gazette journalists can withhold bylines ‘as they see fit,’
Quebec arbitrator rules

When the Gazette’s editor-in-chief ordered all staff to restore their bylines, the MNG launched an immediate grievance under the Employee Integrity section of the collective agreement, which an arbitrator upheld in October 2003. The ruling confirmed that reporters, photographers, artists and others at The Gazette have the “absolute right” to control use of their bylines and credit lines on stories, photos and other works, with the exception of analyses, columns and opinion pieces.

“Just about everybody pulled their bylines today,” says Leroux.

Late this afternoon, the work-to-rule campaign was having an effect, says Leroux, who was hearing reports of some projects being cancelled because staff were refusing to work unscheduled shifts.

The Guild has called upon members to “follow the existing contract conditions to the letter. … strict observance of hours of work: seven hours, plus one hour of meal break, and no overtime unless it’s approved in advance by your department supervisor.”

When bargaining resumed Tuesday for the Editorial and RSS units, lead negotiator David Wilson, a CWA Canada staff representative, was hopeful that the strong strike mandate would move talks along. But there was no progress by the second day so talks broke off Wednesday afternoon.

Guild jurisdiction over work performed by its members has been a critical issue ever since Gazette management laid off 45 RSS employees in June and exported their work to a CanWest call centre in Winnipeg. The MNG is also in the process of grieving the transfer of other work (layout of some pages and the Driving section, electronic photo desk functions, business office duties) to non-unionized CanWest facilities in Hamilton and Winnipeg.

Contracts for all three bargaining units “clearly prohibit the assignment of such work either to employees of the same employer not covered by our collective agreement or to employees outside The Gazette,” says Leroux.

The union is seeking a three-year deal with annual wage increases of six per cent, a major boost in vehicle allowance from $700 to $900 a month, plus improvements in vacation time, vision care and night shift differentials.