Kennedy Heights printing plant for sale, claims union for Vancouver Sun and Province employees

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      The financially troubled Postmedia newspaper empire will be putting its Surrey printing operation on the block.

      The Media Union of B.C. divulged this in a statement on its website late this afternoon.

      "The Kennedy Heights printing plant will be put up for sale and operations there will cease sometime in 2015, the union was told today by Paul Godfrey, CEO of Postmedia," the union stated.

      According to the union, Godfrey also revealed that the company has "entered into a contract" with Transcontinental to print papers starting in early 2015.

      The union has been given two options:

      • The company could contract out the work being done at Kennedy Heights.

      • The union and management could reach an agreement to open a new plant that would print at a substantially lower cost than Kennedy Heights.

      Postmedia has also announced the sale of the building housing the Calgary Herald printing operation. This is one of 10 daily papers in the chain.

      The Vancouver Sun, Province, National Post, Montreal Gazette, Edmonton Journal, and Ottawa Citizen are among the others.

      In June, Godfrey told Marketing magazine that if corrective action wasn't taken, "it's conceivable there may not be any newspapers at all" in the Vancouver market.

      In the last quarter, Postmedia reported a loss of $112 million before income taxes.

      Comments

      8 Comments

      kiskatinawkid

      Sep 9, 2013 at 7:57pm

      Who cares. Corporate media sucks!

      Press play

      Sep 10, 2013 at 6:34am

      People often bemoan what journalists make at the Sun and Province, often suggesting that their packets are fat. But what few people know is that the pressman get pretty sweet deals, sweet enough that mgt has dropped the hammer. The Sun's night shift I'm told is over $95,000 and scheduling is drawn up so that there is overtime two nights a week and leaving early the other three, the effect being their pay is higher. Sounds like the party is over.

      brian Howell

      Sep 10, 2013 at 1:10pm

      what incredibly insightful comments. The news should come from the general public who have a blog that gets updated from their parents basement where they are forced to live cuz earning an average wage is looked upon as a sweet deal in a city where a dump is a million bucks..
      Wake up.

      tedo

      Sep 10, 2013 at 2:12pm

      its sad the workers at the printing factory have to pay for the Sun and Province's intense biased partisan reporting,

      response to Press play

      Sep 11, 2013 at 2:54am

      I see you have nothing better to do than to post your negative opinions as fact, with absolutely no supporting evidence or source. The truth is, none of the statements you have made are accurate. Source? I work there. Perhaps the next time you decide to contribute to something on the internet you should familiarize yourself with the subject. Until then, all you come across as is another uneducated person posting anonymous slander on the internet. Congratulations.

      Salty one

      Sep 11, 2013 at 3:38pm

      You did suggest supporting evidence so here are the CEP's last CBA's for pre-press and pressmen taken from its own website: http://www.mediaunion.ca/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Part-F-Pre... and http://www.mediaunion.ca/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Part-G-Pre... For the day shift, pre-press workers get between $16-$52/hour while pressmen get $45-$51/hour. It goes on from there. Don't just read the union CBA though. Cross reference it with PostMedia financials: http://www.postmedia.com/investors/financial-reports/

      again

      Sep 11, 2013 at 6:39pm

      Glad to see you've done a bit more research. I expect you'll find none of the figures you originally referred to in the contract.
      I won't deny the employees at PNG, downtown and at Kennedy Heights, were quite well compensated. However, I believe the earnings reflected the work they did. The Vancouver Sun and The Province were respected brands with dedicated, professional employees in every department. They earned living wages; fair compensation for work that made these brands what they are today in an expensive city to live in.
      My argument is that if you believe the cost of labour had as big an impact as you seem to believe it did on the viability of the business, you're forgetting about a lot of other factors that were much more significant.
      The decline of print readership, and the subsequent decline of print advertising money that followed were the real issues here. My source here is based on production circulation numbers that have declined steadily over the last decade or so.
      There is no reason to blame the employees in any department for what is essentially the decline of a once profitable industry. That is all.

      deBare

      Dec 17, 2013 at 3:50pm

      Unfortunately karma is a bitch. People forget that just a couple of decades ago the pressmen were the most militant union local at Pacific Press. They were making so much money in manufactured overtime and 'manning' clauses that they would simply go on strike every four to five years to enjoy a summer off - screwing over their fellow workers at the Sun and Province. In today's world of declining daily circulation and decreasing print advertising revenues, there are obviously at lot of factors at work affecting the overall profitably of newspapers. But those past behaviours by the pressmen coupled with loaded contracts certainly haven't made the current path any easier for the company or its workers.