TC in turbulent times

TC Unions Demand Transparency

CanWest CEO suggests wage cuts could be in the offing

This week marked the first that Times Colonist readers went without the Monday print edition of the Vancouver Island daily, as parent company CanWest Global grapples with ways to reduce operating costs and service its massive debt.

A letter from CanWest president and CEO Dennis Skulsky delivered to the company’s bargaining units on June 11 suggests the end of the Monday edition is not the last cut the TC could endure—and implies the company’s unionized workforce shares the blame for the corporation’s financial woes.

“ . . . It’s disappointing to me that while we’ve made several attempts at candid and open discussions about the current business climate and the critical role stakeholders can play in framing a successful path for this company, we haven’t been able to engage our union leadership in a dialogue that is constructive for both CanWest and its employees,” Skulsky wrote.

To that end, it seems CanWest may soon ask employees for wage concessions.

“For example, if we were to reduce salaries by 5% for all staff including unionized, non-unionized and management it would result in annualized savings of $20 million,” Skulsky wrote.

Reps from the Times Colonist’s unions, however, say the company has not leveled the playing field in a way that would inspire them to sign on to any negotiation of changes to their generous collective agreements.

Victoria-Vancouver Island Newspaper Guild administrative officer Deborah Service-Brewster says the company needs to open its books if it expects cooperation from the union representing the TC’s editorial, advertising and circulation staff.

“Basically, our position is that we need to see full financial disclosure by CanWest before we’re prepared to entertain anything,” Service-Brewster says. “We have not seen the books at all. We have to have a really frank and open dialogue and they must be really open with their whole financial situation and what the restructuring is going to look like.”

How that restructuring will look is a matter of conjecture at this point.

“Mr. Skulsky indicated that local labour representatives from the company would be initiating contact with us; so far we have not had any contact from them in that regard, and it seems to me that I don’t think they’re any more knowledgeable than us about the restructuring,” Service-Brewster continues.

Asked whether VVING members would consider a five percent wage rollback, Service-Brewster says, “I think it’s early days to say yet, because we’re not going to take a pig in a poke.”

Mike Bocking, president of Communications Energy and Paperworkers of Canada Local 2000—which represents the Times Colonist’s pressmen and most CanWest employees at publications throughout British Columbia, says, “Our response is that we’re always willing to have a dialogue with the company, but we have a number of really key questions we would like to discuss with them—first and prime among them is where they are at now in their restructuring process and what exactly is the near, medium and longer term future of the newspapers within CanWest.”

Bocking says it’s unclear who is actually in control of the company and whether any of its assets are being actively marketed. And if they are for sale, Bocking wants to know when employees could find themselves toiling under new owners.

The Times Colonist has seen six voluntary buyouts since January and positions made vacant by departing employees have gone unfilled due to a company-wide hiring freeze.

Yet through it all, CanWest honcho Skulsky remains upbeat.

“We believe [the critics] are underestimating our ability to change and to evolve into a new integrated media organization that generates unique and compelling content on multiple platforms engaging a broader base of audiences than ever before,” he wrote.

The critics, meanwhile, are dour. BMO Capital Markets analyst Tim Casey wrote in his summer assessment of Canadian media investments, “CanWest Global, among the larger companies in the domestic sector, is under significant financial pressure. Survival of the entity in its current form is unlikely. We are sceptical that there are buyers for the conventional television stations and newspapers. Some individual broadsheets may attract buyers, but we doubt there is a bid for the entire chain given the carnage inflicted on buyers of U.S.-based newspapers over the last year or two.” M