By Jim Selby, AFL Staff

When Barb Surdykowski, Business Manager of the Non-Academic Staff Association at the University of Alberta, decided to communicate to Conrad Black, CEO of Southam Press parent corporation Hollinger House, the reasons why her union would not be advertising in the Calgary Herald or Edmonton Journal during the strike at the Calgary Herald, she never expected a reply.

However, to her surprise, Conrad Black himself replied. Labour News is reproducing both Ms. Surdykowski’s original letter and Conrad Black’s reply because the two letters are so illustrative of the attitudes and opinions in this dispute.

The union letter is straightforward and clear. The union (NASA) could not, in good conscience, give its business to an employer that is involved in a bitter labour dispute. They felt that the inflammatory behavior and statements of the employer simply disguised a strong anti-union sentiment, and that the employer was unethically blocking the workers’ democratic right to have a union and collective agreement.

NASA behaved in the best traditions of the labour movement. They showed their solidarity and support for other workers – and they made very clear to all concerned why they were doing so.

Conrad Black’s reply was true to form. Black is infamous in labour circles for his contempt and animosity toward workers, their unions and the labour movement in general. He has also been accused of being pompous, overbearing and grossly egotistical.

Read the two letters and judge for yourself. Note how, in Black’s universe, the striking newsroom employees and circulation workers are now ‘union goons’, and ‘reckless and cynical labour agitators’. The legal democratic strike is ‘idiocy’, and Ms. Surdykowski herself is both ‘witless’, ‘misinformed’, and an unsuccessful ‘blackmailer’.

The kind of childish character assassination of people who disagree with him, bombast, and self-centered approach to the world that are all apparent in this letter may explain why Conrad Black still doesn’t have the British lordship he has so avidly pursued.