Board hearing on National Post union vote set for Oct. 11

TORONTO – A majority of newsroom staff at the National Post have voted to join media union CWA Canada, but the final vote result will have to wait until after a hearing is held Oct. 11 on a number of challenged ballots.

The Ontario Labour Relations Board reported today that 31 of 59 newsroom staff voted to join the union.

That is a clear majority and enough to certify the union, but the board must first rule on the inclusion of a number of challenged ballots that have not been counted.

“In the bargaining unit that we defined, there is a clear majority support for the union,” the newsroom employee committee said.

“The company added a few names to the employee list — which then became the voters list — that we believe are not part of the unit. These few ballots have not yet been counted and were kept aside as ‘challenged.’ The union is submitting arguments to the labour board this week about why we think these additional names should not be in the union. If we succeed, these ballots will not be counted and the vote will stand.”

The vote was held Sept. 29 after a solid majority of newsroom staff in Toronto and Ottawa signed union cards.

CWA Canada President Martin O’Hanlon, a veteran journalist, said the union drive is about protecting quality jobs and journalism – and about fundamental fairness.

Most National Post staff have not received a pay raise in a decade and now Postmedia is slashing pensions and benefits while paying millions in executive bonuses and tens of millions to its lenders.

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CWA Canada is a 6,000-strong democratic union run by, and for, media workers at the CBC, The Canadian Press, Thomson Reuters, VICE Canada, Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, and other newspapers and media companies coast to coast.

For more information, check out our website www.nationalpostunion.ca or contact:

Katherine Lapointe
Organizer, CWA Canada
(416) 795-8598
klapointe@cwa-scacanada.ca