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Sunday, June 21, 2009

Globe & Mail employees vote to strike - the end of another newspaper?

Toronto has too many newspapers tooImage by roland via Flickr

Employees at the Globe & Mail have voted to support a strike mandate. Will this be the end of another newspaper as we know it?

If the 500 editorial, advertising and circulation workers do strike, how long will they be able to be out before the Globe & Mail shuts down and vanishes? Without a doubt it is a great paper with a great history. However, in the face of newspapers having difficulty competing with online sources, will this be a catalyst for people to simply abandon the old fashioned newspaper - founded in the 1800s, and start using technology from 1996 and 2005 to browse the web on their computers or wireless devices? That's where my money would be.

I don't know anything about the background of the dispute at the Globe & Mail, but maybe the employees should be looking at better alternatives, such as:
  • Revenue sharing based on producing popular content for the Globe's websites?
  • Ownership and bonuses based on the actual success & longevity of the enterprise?
  • Opportunities to participate in unique revenue creating ventures?
The short of it is that the newspaper industry as a whole in North America is suffering. The union workers at the "Big-3" could probably shed some light on this for the 500 editorial, advertising and circulation workers at the Globe and Mail.

From CBC.ca:
  • Globe and Mail news and sales employees on Saturday voted 97 per cent in favour of authorizing their bargaining committee to call a strike unless the company comes up with a better deal to replace their expiring contract.
  • The 500 editorial, advertising and circulation workers' current four-year contract expires on June 30, and a strike or lockout at the Toronto-based daily newspaper could take place on midnight of that day.
A brief history of the Globe and Mail from Wikipedia:
  • The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed newspaper based in Toronto, and printed in six cities across the country (Halifax, Montreal, Toronto (several editions), Winnipeg (actually printed in Brandon, Manitoba), Calgary and Vancouver)
  • It has a weekly readership of 935 000
  • The Globe and Mail has always been a morning newspaper.
  • In 1995, the paper launched its Web site, globeandmail.com, which had its own content and journalists in addition to the content of the print newspaper.
  • It later spawned a companion Web site, globeinvestor.com, focusing on financial and investment-related news.
  • The predecessor to The Globe and Mail was The Globe, founded in 1844 by Scottish immigrant George Brown
  • The Toronto Mail and Empire was founded in 1872 by Tory politician Sir John A. Macdonald (the first Prime Minister of Canada)
  • In 1936, The Globe merged with The Mail and became The Globe and Mail.
    In 1965, the paper was bought by Winnipeg-based FP Publications controlled by Brig. Richard Malone
  • The Report on Business section was launched in 1962
  • FP Publications and The Globe and Mail were sold in 1980 to the Thomson Group
  • Control of the paper was sold to telecommunications company BCE Inc. in 2001.
  • A year earlier BCE had also acquired CTV, a major private television network.
  • With the sale, the Globe and CTV were merged into a new company named Bell Globemedia (now CTVglobemedia), which became a subsidiary of BCE with the Thomson family retaining a minority stake.
  • In late 2005, BCE reduced its stake in Bell Globemedia, leaving the Thomson family, through its holding company Woodbridge, with a 40-percent stake. BCE, Torstar (owner of the Toronto Star) and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan each control a 20-percent stake.


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