Canadian Labour Reporter

Q & MOVERS & ShAKERS With A Howard Law, media director for Unifor how will a merger of two very similar — even competitive — entities affect unionized members on both sides of the fence? People are just in the realm of speculation at the moment but we're not naïve about what happens after merg- ers and buyouts. Godfrey went on record very cryptically about what the future holds. There are any number of scenarios. (Godfrey) doesn't reveal anything in terms of the commitment level to resources. There's at least a couple cities where there's going to be competing titles, and we have a number of roles you can't really duplicate, in the sense that if you're reaching out to a specific audience you're not going to have certain col- umnists performing double duty. I don't take that as a very soothing possibility. how might this deal affect competition and em- ployee retention? If (the deal) passes at the Competition Bureau, which I really don't doubt it will, we're getting down to really one Canadian national provider for print journalism, that's owned by an American hedge fund. It's a danger- ous situation obviously … Whether or not it's affront to Canadian journalism may just be left up to the integ- rity and commitment of Godfrey and his team — and I hope he acts on the promises he's made. Can you shed light on what this could mean for benefits in collective agreements at both Sun Media and Postmedia? Questions of which collective agreements apply when we are going to follow any business decisions made about merging operations — now that's really speculative. There are situations where there are two unions, there are situations where there's a union and a non union. Look at Ottawa, which has the Ottawa Citizen and the Ottawa Sun, they're unionized by different unions. Look at Toronto, which has the National Post and the Toronto Sun as a union and a non union. There are successor rights laws in Ontario which say you can't run away from a union in a merger. So you really have to wait and see what the company is going to do. So, can you outline one possible course of action? Number one (is to) monitor closely the Competition Bureau's decision. We think there should be an invest- ment review but we're not holding our breaths. We're going to be ready with whatever comes our way in terms of operational changes that may happen to our members. What implications might this hold for the future of Canadian journalism? It's a dangerous situation. I don't want to say for sure that the dangers are going to actualize, that is, poten- tially an American-owned newspaper network — if you don't count Torstar as a national newspaper and the Globe and Mail is only one national newspaper — (Postmedia) will be the only one and they're owned by an American firm. You can say there is a diversity of Canadian voices for audiences in other media, but the fact is newspapers are still alive and kicking and are going to remain alive and kicking into the digital age. A The future of Canadian media ownership is up in the air after Postmedia's president, Paul Godfrey, announced his intention to purchase 175 Sun Media print and online publications. Of particular concern for media and labour groups is competition, potential job cuts or restructuring, and what the future holds for Cana- dian journalism.

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