87-M to elect next local president

Current Unifor Local 87-M President Paul Morse will be defending his incumbency against challenger Mark Newman. 

Unifor Local 87-M’s members will head to the polls this March to decide who their next president will be.

At a general membership meeting at Local headquarters on January 15, Mark Newman of Hamilton Community News announced his intention to run for the position of president of the local, squaring off against incumbent Paul Morse.

Newman previously served on the executive as the fifth vice president, while Morse has served as president of the local since 2011 and previously worked at the Hamilton Spectator.

The election will be held in March, with dates yet to be decided. An elections committee consisting of Jim Rankin of the Toronto Star, Lori Berg of CTV Windsor and Dave Bebee of the Waterloo Region Record will run the election in accordance with Local union bylaws. This is the first presidential election the local has had since 2009.

Other positions on the executive committee were all acclaimed at the meeting.

Richard Leitner of Hamilton Community News will continue in his role as local treasurer and Nathan Greene of the Globe and Mail is taking the role of secretary left vacant when Laura Boast departed from the role. Also continuing to serve in their roles are Trevor Dixon of CTV News London as 1st vice-president, Stan Behal of the Toronto Sun as 2nd vice-president, Andrea Macdonald of the Toronto Star as 3rd vice-president, which she has been serving in an interim basis since November, and Barry Freill from the House of Commons as 4th vice-president. Carleen Finch of the Hamilton Spectator moves to the 5th vice-president role, up from sixth, and Mason Wright of the Globe and Mail will serve his first term as 6th vice-president.

All executive positions at the local come up for election every two years and officers start their terms on April 1 2020, and will serve until March 31, 2022.

This year’s Unifor Media Council delegates were also elected. Representing 87-M this year in Ottawa will be Finch, Dixon, Macdonald, Morse, Wright, Leitner, Berg and Newman, with Darrell Sim of the Ottawa Citizen chosen as an alternate.