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Living Can Kill You

Labour woes at Toronto’s newspapers

Fun at Toronto’s newspapers:

• The newly unionized editorial employees at the traditionally anti-union Toronto Sun are holding their first strike vote tomorrow. If they do walk out, the non-unionized CANOE employees will be forced to cross their colleagues’ picket line. Update: the Sun’s editorial staff voted 90 per cent in favour of strike action.

• The new publisher of the Sun’s city competitor, the Toronto Star strongly suggested job cuts are coming at the broadsheet. The move is, in part, because the Star’s parent lost eight percent of its first quarter income because its cash-cow, Harlequin, isn’t selling enough books.

  Canadian newspapers are prestige products, primarily, and all the big ones are financially supported by another segment of their parent companies’ businesses. For example,

  The Globe and Mail

  has Bell Globemedia (the Globe’s majority owner), which relies on CTV ads (thus, American and Canadian Idol) and the telecommunication subsidiaries of its own parent, BCE;

  the National Post and the other CanWest papers

  has ad revenue from CanWest’s TV stations (and tonight’s Friends season finale);

  the Toronto Star

  has the romance novel publisher, Harlequin;

  and the Toronto Sun and the others in the Sun chain

  has Quebecor’s printing company, Quebecor World.