October 14, 2008 News

CanWest recruits at Concordia

Form of scab labour proposed to Journalism students

by Terrine FridayPamela Toman

CanWest recruits Concordia journalism students in the event of a strike.
PHOTO Jonathan Dempsey

Concordia University journalism students have found themselves embroiled in a web of ongoing negotiations between the Montreal Newspaper Guild and CanWest.

Two weeks ago, Concordia undergraduate students started getting phone calls from Gerry Nott, editor-in-chief of CanWest News Service in Ottawa, who asked if they would be willing to take on writing assignments about local Montreal issues in the event of a strike, or lock-out at the Montreal newspaper.

On Oct. 8, three graduate students got offers to work in the event of a strike.

“[Mr. Nott] explained that he was contacting us because of contentious labour negotiations that were going on and the possibility of a strike,” said Dominique Jarry-Shore, a graduate student at Concordia and regular contributor to The Gazette, in an interview with the CBC Thursday morning. “He said he was trying to line up people to be able to write for him.”

Although she declined the offer, Jarry-Shore admits the proposal was tempting: Nott offered a guarantee of getting published and $250 per story, money that would come in handy to students during the school year.

Most students declined the offer, aware of the fact that consenting to provide a form of scab labour could endanger their future careers as journalists.

Department of Journalism Director Mike Gasher cautioned students in an email sent out to J-schoolers as word of the solicitations spread.

“I would caution you to think very carefully about accepting such an offer as it is a form of scab labour,” he wrote. “Not only could this 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.”

Gazette reporter and Guild vice-president Irwin Block said union employees currently have rights over their own content, but CanWest wants to centralize production by outsourcing “in order to continue to have more pages laid out and handled and processed by a non-union shop in Hamilton, Ontario […] This means they’re taking the Montreal out of the Montreal Gazette.”

According to Block, getting a pay raise is also on the table. “We have asked for a six per cent increase, but [keeping editorial control] is our starting demand,” he said.

As a sign of protest, guild employees at The Gazette have removed their bylines from their work.

“We’re trying to defend the integrity of the newspaper,” Block said.