Rue Frontenac launches

RueFrontenac.com

Four and a half days after they were locked out of the Journal de Montréal (too much time for the impatient Patrick Lagacé), 253 unionized workers launched their competing news site, RueFrontenac.com at a press conference at 2pm Wednesday.

In a welcome message, Raynald Leblanc says the union was willing to negotiate about increasing the work week and moving toward multimedia. But they wouldn’t stand for the elimination of entire departments (the Journal wanted to outsource accounting) and the laying off of dozens of staff.

Sports has its own welcome message from Mario Leclerc. And Marc Beaudet is doing cartoons. It’s also continuing the Journal tradition of screaming “exclusive scandal” on stories that don’t sound particularly scandalous.

The site is based on Joomla, and definitely could use a bit of tweaking (Arial as a body typeface? Would it kill you to use serifs somewhere?), especially in the design of individual articles, but it’s a start.

InfoPresse explains the catchphrase “Par la bouche de nos crayons!” (via mtlweblog)

In other Journal news

… and so goes Godwin’s Law.

3 thoughts on “Rue Frontenac launches

  1. Martin Patriquin

    What on earth is a ‘freelance scab’? Seriously, that makes no sense. If you are a freelancer who has been working for a publication before a strike/lockout, you are by definition not a scab.

    Reply
    1. Fagstein Post author

      I don’t use the term literally. But it’s faster to write than “freelancer who has chosen to cross the picket line in order to continue contributing”

      Reply
  2. Martin Patriquin

    They ‘choose’ to do so because they if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have any benefits (strike pay, for example) and wouldn’t likely be asked to return once whatever work action is over. They aren’t unionized; ergo, the union doesn’t offer them any protection. For people who make their living by freelancing (hint: it’s not Martin Brodeur or Jacques Demers), this is a pretty good way to go broke.

    Reply

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