Sun Media units ratify central deal

Nine Sun Media units ratify central deal on wages, benefits and job security

Nine Sun Media workplaces have ratified an historic deal negotiated for the first time at a central table.

A tentative deal was reached Feb.14 and ratified at votes across Ontario over the last week of February and the first week of March.

The central deal covered wages, benefits and job security issues. This was the first time that such a broad, and significant, range of issues have been bargained centrally at the Quebecor-owned media giant.

As a result of the deal, the employer's proposal to cut vacations and bereavement leave at a majority of the newspapers was unsuccessful. Instead, bereavement leave was increased at some units and several units got an improvement in their severance language, a major job security issue.

An overwhelming majority of members at the nine newspapers approved the tentative central deal and no units voted againsst it. Bargaining will now proceed over the next two months on any remaining local issues.

The pattern is expected to remain in place for a second group of Sun Media newspapers bargaining in late 2013/early 2014.

The nine newspapers whose contracts were up for renewal in 2012 include the Sarnia Observer, the Chatham Daily News, the Simcoe Reformer, the Stratford Beacon-Herald, the Niagara Falls Review, the Brantford Expositor, the Belleville Intelligencer, the Pembroke Observer and the London Free Press Editorial unit.