By Jim Selby, AFL Staff

The strike at the Calgary Herald, now five months old, has been a constant reminder of how much power an employer has to avoid a first contract here in Alberta. Conrad Black, the bombastic and unlikable owner of the Calgary Herald, has made public admissions that there is a plan to decertify the union.

Deliberately bargaining to impasse, or simply being unwilling to negotiate a collective agreement are grounds in other jurisdictions for the imposition of a first collective agreement.

But, as AFL President Audrey Cormack observed, "the Alberta government is quick to demand a legislated end to strikes and lockouts when their business friends are being hurt. However, when it is workers who are suffering, the Klein government is strangely uninterested in such resolutions."

Klein exposes ignorance
In fact, Premier Klein questioned the legitimacy of reporters going on strike at all. According to the Premier, engaging in a strike may create a bias in their future reporting of labour disputes. "I guess the Premier also thinks that reporters who vote in elections are then too biased to write about political events," scoffed Cormack. "And I’ll bet that he thinks that reporters who cross a picket line during a legal strike should also be barred from reporting labour disputes in the future because they have made their anti-labour, pro-employer bias obvious."

On a more optimistic note, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Calgary recently published a scathing attack on Conrad Black and the management of the Calgary Herald in the Western Catholic Reporter (reprinted below on this page). Black responded in typical form, calling the Bishop a "jumped up little twerp" and a "useful idiot" to the strike leaders.

On the circulation front, the Calgary Herald has been going a little overboard trying to get new subscribers. Larry Connell, Chairperson of the Alberta Union of Public Employees Local 10, had three phone calls offering him spectacular savings on a three month subscription to the Herald. Connell told them, in no uncertain terms, that he would have nothing to do with the Herald until there was a collective agreement reached with the striking workers.

Imagine his surprise when a copy of the Herald, wrapped in plastic, appeared at his door. When Larry phoned to complain, the voice on the other end told him to throw out the paper. "I flatly refused," said Connell. "I told them to get somebody out to get the damn thing off my doorstep. At first they balked, but when it became clear that I would accept nothing else, they finally sent someone over who retrieved the newspaper."

In a related story, an Edmonton man was told that the Calgary Herald strike was over, so it was okay to resubscribe to the Edmonton Journal. Luckily, he first checked with the AFL who let him know the true state of affairs in Calgary.

Journalism profs don’t want Herald on campus
Meanwhile, the faculty at the Carleton University School of Journalism asked the Herald not to recruit scabs on campus. Although overruled by the university President, the Herald recruiters continue to face opposition and protest.