TO Star's Chinese paper on strike - Carriers lose theirs

Sing Tao workers protest "sweatshop" - carriers' loss seen as a blow immigrant workers

Notes from: Peter Boyle

  TORONTO: CEP Local 87M is on strike at The Sing Tao Daily Paper a Toronto Star newspaper. The workers have been on strike since April 1st for a first contract. Management has inflamed the sitution by using scabs try to deliver the papers. Production has been cut in half.
  Meanwhile, the Toronto Star's carriers have lost their three-week strike and voted to accept an agreement that will kill their union.
  Sing Tao is serves 20,000 readers and is profitable, yet workers are paid nearly 20 percent less than at other Star-owned papers. The union - which obtained a 91% strike mandate - charges that Torstar Corporation with creating a low-wage ghetto for Chinese Canadians.
  Meanwhile Toronto Star (www.thestar.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic...) carriers, members of CEP Local 87M just settled a three-week strike aimed at improving wages and working conditions and ultimately the jobs of the 2,200 workers, who deliver the newspapers to Toronto homes every morning. These workers drive to a shopping centre parking lot at 3:30 each morning to join four dozen others waiting for a truckload of newspapers. They insert flyers in the newspapers, bundle and deliver each paper to the door. They provide the car, plastic bags, even the elastics.
  Carriers used to earn $1,300 a month in 1990 but most recently got $980 - a 25% cut in income. Provoked by the income squeeze and worsening conditions, 75% of carriers voted to unionize. Most are recent immigrants. Rather than bargain with them, the Toronto Star tried to abolish their union.
  News came, as Straight Goods went to press that the strike has ended. By a margin of approximately two to one, thirty percent of The Toronto Star's 2,000 home delivery carriers voted to accepted an agreement that will kill their fledgling union.
  The union failed to achieve its key goal - to force The Star not to outsource management of home delivery. "This is an extremely bitter pill but one we were forced to swallow," said John Deverell, president of CEP 87M Southern Ontario Newspaper Guild.
  "Unfortunately a large hit on delivery was not enough to overcome Star management's determination to destroy our union," said carrier leader Brad Drake. "Nothing short of devastating impact was going to do the trick, and we didn't produce a devastating impact."
  "It is a negative legacy to all workers in the Toronto area," Deverell said. "For thousands of newcomers to Canada and Toronto the carrier union would have been a school for worker dignity and responsible unionism. The Star has killed that hope, and it is an act many will not forget."

Posted: April 16, 2001

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