BY RICK PUSIAK
Organized labour in Sudbury supports the locked-out workers at the daily newspaper. Representatives from groups ranging from the United Steelworkers of America to Mine Mill/CAW, CUPE and Laurentian University professors showed solidarity Tuesday with Sudbury Star employees who have been locked out of their jobs for more than three weeks.
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The locked-out workers, with the support of the labour council, has launched a campaign to boycott the Sudbury Star.
Members of unions will be handed subscription cancellation forms during the lock out.
The president of the Northern Ontario Newspaper Guild, Denis St. Pierre said unionized staff have been left with no choice but to call for a readership boycott because the company that owns the publication, the Toronto-based Osprey Media Group, continues to use replacement workers to publish while refusing to negotiate an end to the dispute.
Â?We were surprised and shocked to be locked out of our jobs Oct. 5,Â? said St. Pierre.
Â?Osprey became our master last summerÂ?we were locked out and our jobs were immediately replaced by scabs. The company already had security guards in the building with surveillance cameras.Â?
St. Pierre said the union is going to zero in on the companyÂ?s pocketbook by taking aim at circulation.
The president of the Sudbury and District Labour Council, Sandy Bass, said, the boycott could be extended to businesses that advertise in the newspaper and stores that sell the newspaper during the lockout.
Steelworkers Local 6500 president Jim Gosselin said the union is not only urging members to pass on the Star during the lock out, but heÂ?s putting out the word to all retired company employees.
The union has invited the locked out newspaper workers over for supper tonight at the Steel Hall.
Â?We in turn are going to take over their picket line with a number of the old past pensioners who have been through this kind of battle before and are still willing, in their 60s and 70s to stand up for what they believe in,Â? said Gosselin.
CUPE Local 4705 has already approved a boycott of the Sudbury Star.
President Wyman MacKinnon said secondary picketing, information lines set up away from a main strike or lock out site is legal in this country, and his people will be entertaining the thought of engaging in such activity.
St. Pierre, meanwhile, unveiled a bumper stick that contains the words Â?The Sudbury Star, DonÂ?t Read ItÂ?. The word Â?scabÂ? is printed over the newspaper logo.
During a final meeting early this month aimed at hammering out a contract Osprey Media Group Inc. offered a three-year deal with wage hikes of 2.5 per cent, two per cent and two per cent in each year of the proposed pact.
The union wanted a deal with a four per cent increase in each year. Negotiations hit the skids when Osprey asked for an assurance there would be no job action when the union presented the final offer to the membership.
Publisher Ken Seguin has gone on record as objecting to union claims the company is unwilling to talk. He has pointed out, however, the companyÂ?s three-year package is final.
Out of 80 unionized employees at the Star about 75 people are still locked out. A small local involving about half a dozen people voted to go back to work. There are four different bargaining units with four different collective agreements at the cityÂ?s daily newspaper. The unionized workers are represented by two national organizations, the Newspaper Guild Canada and the Graphic Communications International Union which negotiate collectively as a joint council.
