Solidarity with 121 laid off Torstar staff
On Nov. 20, our Rep Council met on the heels of the devastating news coming out Torstar the day before, with the announcement of 121 jobs being eliminated across Torstar/Metroland.
We stand in solidarity with our affected 60 members at The Hamilton Spectator, the Waterloo Region Record, the Fairway Group, Metroland, the St. Catharines Standard, StarMetro Toronto, and the Toronto Star, as well as the 11 Unifor Local 2000 members at StarMetro Vancouver, and all of the non-union staff across the other papers around the country affected by this decision.
The company’s restructuring includes the shuttering of the StarMetro papers, whose journalists were doing incredible reporting across the country, and providing the only source of free daily print news in those communities. For some people, these papers may have been virtually their only source of daily news.
It also includes 33 talented editors at the Spec, community reporters and photographers around the GTA, as well as advertising, finance, circulation and special-sections staff around Southern Ontario.
This final nail in the coffin comes after many rounds of earlier layoffs, and while many of our members have landed on their feet, many are still looking for good jobs.
The reality is that good jobs are disappearing in our industry; every round of layoffs, every closure.
We’ve said it many times, but the message bears repeating: Our industry is in crisis, it is only getting worse and we need to #SaveLocalNews, to save our jobs and protect our democracy.
Please take a look at our recommendations and Unifor Media’s latest press release on this issue.
Our newly re-elected Liberal minority government has made promises to support our industry. We need to make sure we hold them accountable.
In the meantime we will continue to defend our members and defend journalism and continue our talks with Torstar around these layoffs and other changes. But we need your help. Please help spread the message. We’ll say it one more time: We need to #SaveLocalNews.