- A Brief History -

Our local was granted its first charter on Nov. 14, 1960. The editorial department was certified in 1977. In 1979, the outside circulation people were certified, followed by the inside circulation people in 1981. The advertising people joined the Guild in 1989 and the sales representatives in 1990. In late 1992, the business-office and switchboard people were organized followed by the Electronic Data Processing people in 1998. This brought our membership up to approximately 450, out of some 700 Gazette employees. Today, we represent about 350 members.

- A Detailed History -

The Montreal Newspaper Guild (MNG) was born more than 40 years ago.  Local 111 of the American Newspaper Guild was granted its charter Nov. 14, 1960. Its members were in the delivery department of The Montreal Star.

But not all delivery workers signed up. There were 12 holdouts, and this led to some interesting times during bargaining for a first contract.

ANG international representative Peter J. Reilly came in to negotiate that first collective agreement.  According to Fred Dunham—retired MNG administrative officer who was in the middle of the local scene from the beginning–Reilly was a hard-fighting, hard-drinking and hard-working union man.

Dunham recalls that because of the holdouts, there was a lot of infighting.  And he recalls some fist-fighting, too.

“I remember Peter punching a fellow in the mouth,” he recalled in a recently discovered capsule history of the local’s founding, “with them ending up wrestling on the ground.”

It took several months of hard bargaining and on-the-job work actions, but a contract was finally won.

The building-services workers at The Star were certified on June 15, 1961, and the local began to grow by leaps and bounds.

The union door was finally pushed open at The Gazette when the editorial department –by itself!- was certified Dec. 22, 1977. As events were to show, if that certification hadn’t taken place, there would likely be no TNG Canada Local 30111 today, at least not as we know it.

In 1978, Local 41 of the pressman’s union declared a general strike at The Star. Although the Guild was negotiating, management locked out everyone else and closed the place down. This strike/lockout was to last nine months.

It wasn’t a Guild strike, but Guild members were out in sympathy, or at least in support.

By this time ANG had become The Newspaper Guild (TNG). It paid a total of $855,150 (1978 dollars!) in benefits to members during the strike/lockout.

One immediate effect was that The Gazette’s outside newspaper sales department of some 60 persons joined and was certified, bringing the local’s total membership to nearly 700.

The long strike/lockout had given The Gazette, always a distant second-place paper in Montreal, the opportunity to hustle. Dramatic changes in the 200-year-old paper were instituted.  When The Star resumed publication in February 1979, “Star Wars” hit Montreal.  It was clear that there would be only one survivor.

Star executives called a meeting of all union heads at 4 p.m. on Sept. 25, 1979. The word flashed through the newsroom at The Gazette, the result of queries when trading in Southam stock was halted on the Montreal and Toronto stock exchanges.

We all wondered whether The Gazette would fold, or whether The Star and The Gazette would be merged into one English-language daily in Montreal.

Instead, the publisher of The Star issued a terse announcement that the newspaper had ceased to exist as of 4 p.m. Sept. 25, 1979.

With that simple announcement, Local 111 in effect dropped from nearly 700 members under contract to just 63 members-those in The Gazette’s editorial department. The 60-plus outside sales members had yet to get their first contract.

Membership in the Montreal Newspaper Guild had taken a severe hit. Yet the determination was there “to soldier on.”

The Gazette moved into the vacated Star building in early 1980. After all, it was a much more modern building than that of The Gazette, which had been built just before The Great Depression of the 1929-30 era.

“Inherited” with the The Star building was its maintenance department which had been part of the International Typographical Union.

However, in a free vote, that department chose to say goodbye to the ITU and to team up with the Guild.  It was certified in 1980.

The rebuilding was under way.

As the result of a hair-raising blitz where circulation district managers brought canvassers to the homes of workers in the inside sales department of The Gazette, a majority was signed up in a single day and certification was granted May 26, 1981.

There was a brief flurry of organizing outside The Gazette in early 1982. As a consequence, some 39 editorial workers of Globe International, publisher of the checkout counter tabloids were included in a May 31, 1982 certification.

It was a Pyrhhic victory: within a few months, only a single Guild member remained. The rest of the operation was moved out of Quebec to the firm’s printing plant in Florida.

It was an expensive operation, but the local proved it is an honourable organization. It engaged legal and other counsel, fought in the courts and eventually won a dismissal package for the Globe employees that otherwise would not have been made available.

The Montreal Newspaper Guild, small as it was, probably achieved some degree of international fame when it negotiated a successful contract at The Gazette in 1982-83.

The most whopping achievement in an otherwise outstanding contract was a 38 per cent increase spread over three years, with a large signing bonus up front.

In the days of 4 per cent contracts, this agreement was not seen by all Guild members as anything outstanding. At a raucous ratification meeting, much was said about the raise “not being enough.” More members concluded that no matter how good the new contract might be, it would never be enough to satisfy some.

It was a learning experience for the Guild, too. To quote Abraham Lincoln, “You can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.”

It became a principle to negotiate the best contracts possible, and let the members decide. A recommendation maybe, but no pushing.

As anyone who has ever served as a shop steward or on a local executive knows only too well, every day is action-packed. But from a broader perspective, Local 111 was in for a time of relative quiet-except that we were locked out for a week in 1984.

MNG had been in joint bargaining with The Gazette local of the old ITU. As negotiations progressed, the Guild grew closer to a satisfactory agreement, but the ITU was miles away.

An MNG-ITU agreement was reached: neither would take any work action without total agreement of the other union.

During the evening of Aug. 24, 1984, ITU members at The Gazette were told to refuse to work on certain pages of the paper, including the front page. It was a work action to which the Guild had not only not agreed, but had not been informed was even contemplated.

It was not long before “all unionized employees” were told to pack their personal belongings and leave the building.

It was a lockout!

Gazette management was called. Yes, they were willing to negotiate with the Guild.

It was a sight indeed, and quite a site! Guild offices were turned over to the ITU to put together picket signs while, at the same time, Guild negotiators were locked away in a hotel working out details of a new contract.

By breakfast the next day, the Guild agreement was even better than what it had been ready to agree to on the morning of Aug. 24.

We were out for exactly one week, but were brought back on a statutory holiday. So with TNG’s strike/lockout pay and the company’s signing bonus, some people made more than usual that week.

The Guild had a good reputation for negotiating good contracts. And for looking after its members.

A number of Gazette departments chose to become unionized in the following years, and all chose the Guild.

Ad Services was certified June 6, 1989. But that left the Ad Sales people without a union.

On March 1, 1990, the Ad Sales department was certified, leaving all but the few people in “creative services” outside the union umbrella.

Most of the “bad managers” were cut loose by the company, those people who saw the Guild as an imposition on their right to mismanage, and to terrorize and practice favouritism. It seemed that brighter days were ahead.

But then it brought in a “head honcho” whose opinion of unions is even worse that the worst pitboss of the 1920’s.

Grievances abound, and it is MNG’s maxim that no grievance will be filed that the local is not prepared to take through all its legal steps.

But advertising sales and newspaper sales need a business office to handle the financial details. So the Guild organized the Business Office. It was certified Jan. 27, 1993.

The last unit certified was Nov. 12, 1998: The Electronic Data Processing unit, or EDP. That’s the tiny department that is responsible for all computerization at The Gazette.

The EDP had approached the Guild many years ago to investigate the possibility of coming in. To the Guild’s surprise, it chose to join the Canadian Energy and Paperworkers union, the CEP.

After some bad contracts and members’ complaints being ignored by the CEP, the Guild was approached again.

The Guild applied for certification on behalf of the EDP, which brought a charge of “raiding” against the Guild with the Canadian Labour Congress. 

The CLC investigated and realized that it was EDP members who had approached the Guild. EDP became part of the Guild.

Today, the Montreal Newspaper Guild maintains its focus on its primary role: the good and welfare of its members.