Editors, the Gauntlet,
I was amused to read Creaser’s closing remarks in her report noting that because only two of Canada’s large dailies are non-union, replacement workers may have a hard time finding jobs when the strike is settled.
Of the 90 or so people currently at work in our newsroom producing the same amount of copy previously produced by 149 people, 60 are full-time employees of the Calgary Herald and 35 are members of the CEP bargaining unit. They include some of the finest journalists in the country: Catherine Ford, James Muretich, Suzanne Wilton, John Gradon, Robert Walker, David Heyman, Grant Robertson, Charles Frank, etc. For Paul Drohan, of all people, to challenge the quality of these people and their like, and pretend in any way that his own professional track record is superior in any way or even equal to theirs is quite beyond the pale. Just ask anyone in the business.
Of the people at work here who are not full-time Herald employees, we have enjoyed the talents of news editors, city editors, sports editors, entertainment editors, managing editors, assistant managing editors and other senior people from across the country. These are the same people who hire today’s young journalists. For Creaser to infer that these excellent professionals would now somehow have difficulty getting jobs in union shops not only reveals her gullibility on this issue, it points out the threat to democracy which occurs when agreement with a certain political agenda is a requirement mandatory to employment in the field of journalism.
Oh, and as for Prof. Tom Langford–who has not invited me to speak to his class–and his reference to my bravado in the fact of the true facts about our subscriptions: he’s right–I do know the real numbers.