OTTAWA: The Toronto Star hit newstands on Wednesday without a single byline in its pages as reporters protested job cuts at Canada’s largest daily.
Management announced earlier this week a plan to cut or outsource 25 newsroom jobs and 30 more in other departments because of dwindling advertising revenues.
Several editing, design and page layout functions are to be contracted to Pagemasters North America, a subsidiary of the Canadian Press newswire, which is jointly owned by the Toronto Star’s parent company Torstar, the Globe and Mail and the French-language daily La Presse. Sources said Pagemasters’s salaries are 50 per cent less than pay at the Toronto Star.
The Communications, Energy and Paperworks Union representing the paper’s staff in a letter urged its members to “exercise their unfettered right to withdraw their bylines” to send a ‘powerful message’ to the publisher and the board.
All articles in the paper were thus marked as written ‘by staff’ except for columns and editorials, which are covered by separate contractual obligations. — AFP