Tag Archives: Journal de Montréal

Enquête sur Quebecor: Good, but I expected more (UPDATED)

November 4, 2011 – 5:07 am| Posted in Media

UPDATE (Nov. 10): More excerpts from documents cited by Enquête, and reaction in Quebecor media outlets added below, including one in English from Éric Duhaime.

"Il est aussi clair dans notre esprit qu'un groupe de presse rival peut poser un regard critique sur un autre," Enquête host Alain Gravel writes in a blog post published hours before his show's report on the Quebecor media empire (also viewable on tou.tv). "Ça se fait partout dans le monde. Sinon, qui pourrait le faire?"

It's a good question. There are few journalistic enterprises here with the resources to pull it off. Maybe La Presse, but it suffers from the same problem as Radio-Canada of being a perceived enemy of Quebecor. An anglophone media outlet like the Globe and Mail or Toronto Star or Maclean's might, but this story needed to be told in French.

Aside from La Presse and Radio-Canada, the only big media left in this province are all owned by Quebecor. And that's kind of the point. A study by Influence Communication done for Enquête shows that these three media companies produce 83% of the journalism that Quebecers consume. Though Quebecor is the largest of these three groups, the problem of media concentration concerns all three.

Gravel pointed out right off the bat how delicate the report would be, because Quebecor owns TVA, which competes directly with Radio-Canada. It's an important point to keep in mind, and certainly No. 1 on the list of issues Quebecor would bring up in response.

Fortunately for us, Enquête has pretty solid journalistic credentials, and isn't about to say something unless it's been verified.

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Journal de Montréal: The day the union died

April 11, 2011 – 2:54 am| Posted in Media

Tech reporter Jean-François Codère has only his iPhone to comfort him

It's hard to describe the emotions coming from Rue Frontenac's journalists when I met them a few hours after the vote that approved a new contract between the Journal de Montréal and its workers' union.

Sad. Angry. Indignant. Depressed. Resigned. They certainly weren't celebrating, but they decided as a group to drink their troubles away at a local bar as they contemplated their futures. They were cooling off after a 10-hour meeting that ended badly for them (and they let the cameras know it just afterward).

This group was a minority of the 253 workers locked out of their jobs on Jan. 24, 2009. They are the Rue Frontenac faithful, the young, motivated journalists who have worked hardest to feed a website and weekly print publication that was setup primarily as a pressure tactic and a demonstration that the success of the Journal de Montréal had more to do with the workers than the company or its name.

People like Gabrielle Duchaine, Jean-François Codère, Jessica Nadeau, Dominic Fugère, David Patry, Pascale Lévesque, David Santerre, Vincent Larouche, and others. I can't say for certain what was in their minds (or their secret ballots), but for the most part, these are people who voted against the contract, who were ready to say on the spot that they're never going back to the Journal ("no fucking way" was how Nadeau put it when I asked, though others didn't want to commit officially while emotions were still high), who are so low on the seniority list that they probably couldn't come back even if they wanted to, and who are ready and eager to make a run at turning Rue Frontenac into a viable business.

Starting Monday, as the journalists who are returning to their jobs come back to work (though it won't be in the same building, and at last report it seemed they wouldn't even be able to fill all 42 editorial positions because only 23 have agreed to return), Rue Frontenac changes from being a union pressure tactic into an experiment with an untested business model.

While the prime focus of the anger of this group after their ratification vote was and remains Pierre Karl Péladeau, the chief executive of Quebecor who they believe has turned lockouts and union busting into a business model, a flood of criticism emerged that night against a former ally: the CSN, who they believe let their union be destroyed.

Was CSN incompetent?

The list of criticisms against CSN management and its leader Claudette Carbonneau were many: They were woefully unprepared for the type of conflict they were engaging in. They were slow to push a public campaign to boycott the Journal de Montréal (one which was obviously unsuccessful - the paper actually saw a readership increase despite the drop in original content). Their lawyers were incompetent, unable to battle on the same level of those of Quebecor. They didn't even support the idea of Rue Frontenac when it launched. Carbonneau, who was too timid to be a union leader, bungled the PR for the union's side of the conflict, and should have known despite her denials about an agreement shortly before the lockout that Péladeau argues could have stopped it before it started.

It's not so much the motives of the CSN that are in question. Carbonneau says the central union gave $7 million to the local to support it and its members, and made it clear at the second anniversary of the lockout that it would continue supporting the union for as long as it takes.

But it's clear the Syndicat des travailleurs de l'information du Journal de Montréal believed it knew better how to run its business, and it was the local that did most of the organizing and planning. The CSN provided money and organizational support, but the campaign - particularly Rue Frontenac - was mostly the local union's doing.

The anticlimax

The last straw - or perhaps just the most recent example - of CSN's perceived incompetence came during that heated Saturday union meeting at the Palais des Congrès. After the vote was counted, as the executive waited for all the members to come back into the room for the announcement, a flak for the CSN assembled a scrum of outside media to tell them the result. Those journalists instantly forwarded that information to their desks or tweeted it themselves, resulting in all sorts of breaking news alerts going out. Many of the union members sitting patiently waiting to hear the results ended up getting it not from their executive but on their smartphones from Radio-Canada or other media.

There was no harm done - the result had been counted. But it made for an incredibly anticlimactic announcement, according to some of the people who were in the room. That, they said, aside from being yet another example of the CSN screwing something up, hurt them psychologically.

"They stole that moment away from us," explained Jessica Nadeau. That moment where the announcement is made, and people cheer, yell, cry, pat each other on the back, or otherwise react together. Instead, the ground had been softened by rumours (much like a government will leak bad news to the media before it's announced so the impact is lessened), and there was no such release.

CSN head Claudette Carbonneau, seen here at December's protest, spent a lot of time explaining herself to the media in the past week. Union president Raynald Leblanc is on the far left.

Say it ain't so, Carbo

After this very public airing of grievances (even Beaudet had a cartoon on the subject), and articles from people like Patrick Lagacé taking her to task (he defends his views in a blog post), Carbonneau and the CSN went on the defensive. She talked to Radio-Canada. She explained herself to Presse Canadienne. She appeared on Tout le monde en parle to explain herself to Guy A. Lepage (and got a rather nasty pancarte from Dany Turcotte saying the CSN was "so-so-so-solidement planté"). The FNC's president wrote an op-ed in Le Devoir defending the union.

It got to the point where the STIJM's president, Raynald Leblanc, had to issue a press release defending the CSN.

Former CSN head Gérald Larose didn't bite when invited to by Rue Frontenac, instead saying such a long conflict is bound to cause tensions. In Le Devoir, columnist Gil Courtemanche also wrote that it's difficult to assign blame to any one party for all of this. Though he and others make it clear that the unions came out on the losing side.

Less than two weeks after the vote, and for reasons she said had nothing to do with the Journal de Montréal, Carbonneau announced she would not seek re-election to the top post at CSN.

Fractured union

Now that the formalities are out of the way, the STIJM is no longer what it once was, if only because its membership will be only a fraction of those 253 from 2009.

The contract effectively split those members into the following groups:

  • The 62 full-time workers and one part-time worker who will be returning to the Journal de Montréal (assuming all positions offered are taken)
  • Those who will take the buyout/severance money and retire - a number that theoretically could encompass more than 100
  • Those who will work with Rue Frontenac as it tries to become a viable worker's cooperative - one that coordinator Richard Bousquet admitted in January could realistically only include a handful
  • Those who have already found other jobs (like Fabrice de Pierrebourg), will quickly find other employment or will rely on other jobs for income, taking semi-retirement or working for less
  • Those who are not part of the above groups, who are too young or too poor to retire even with this extra cash, and whose skills aren't transferrable to available jobs elsewhere

It is, of course, that last group that is the big worry. And we won't know for a little while how many people are in it.

Will this end up in court?

The division between members of the STIJM heightened shortly after a followup meeting to vote on a back-to-work protocol. An email signed by photographer Claude Rivest (one of many people in the editorial department whose contributions to Rue Frontenac trailed off in the months after it launched and eventually stopped entirely) sought to round up opponents to the protocol to launch a court case arguing improper procedure in the vote. (Rivest didn't answer a request for comment on the matter.)

The main issue was the way the union decided to disburse the $20 million severance funds. It was by seniority, with a minimum and maximum. Rivest argued that setting a maximum unfairly hurt those who worked at the paper before 1985 by making those years not count.

Rivest's email launched a heated back-and-forth over email among STIJM members, most of whom were strongly opposed to Rivest's move, calling it "cheap" "disgusting" and "absurd". The discussion died down quickly, and not much has been heard since.

Lessons

Everyone and their grandmother tried to analyze the Journal de Montréal conflict to find some sense in it:

  • Michel Kelly-Gagnon, president of l'Institut économique de Montréal, predictably takes the side of the employer, throwing up some strawman arguments and concluding that the working conditions before the lockout weren't as awful as nobody said they were.
  • The Tyee, just as predictably, takes the union's side, focusing on how much profit Quebecor's print assets were raking in
  • Le Devoir's media reporter Stéphane Baillargeon summarizes it as proof that a newspaper can function with no (or, more accurately, few) journalists.
  • Editorial cartoonists including The Gazette's Aislin and Le Droit's Bado have thrown their two cents in, making jokes about Quebecor's Nordiques obsession.
  • Projet J talks to Denis Bolduc of the Journal de Québec's labour union. The Journal de Québec had a long lockout itself that seemed to be a big deal, but whose issues weren't nearly as big as those the Journal de Montréal would later face. Bolduc points out that the union has filed grievances charging that the Journal de Québec is already violating aspects of the agreement it proposed that ended the lockout.
  • Rue Frontenac's Yvon Laprade asks some experts how this conflict will affect future labour negotiations in Quebec. He finds there isn't much demand for others to follow the model of the Journal de Montréal.
  • Simon Jodoin at Voir says unions and governments have to see how the environment has changed and adapt to it.
  • Martin Patriquin at Maclean's wonders who will be the next victim of the Quebecor lockout.

Most agree that this is a union defeat, that the Journal proved one could operate a newspaper legally and successfully during a lockout, and that the readers who could have made a difference by refusing to read the Journal chose to continue reading, rendering the union virtually powerless.

Frankly, I think both the union and the paper have been crippled. Sadly, both look like they're what Pierre Karl Péladeau wanted. (He disagrees, of course, during an interview with Paul Arcand)

Now what?

As some employees return to work, the rest try to forget about the Journal de Montréal, either trying to figure out how they can begin their retirement, finding another job or trying to work out a viable business model for Rue Frontenac.

Union president Raynald Leblanc is not among those returning to the Journal, and still deciding on his future. So what's left of the crippled union needs a new leader.

As far as the public is concerned, the campaign is over. That hoopla about changes to Quebec's anti-scab law is all but gone now, even though nothing about the agreement prevents another company in a similar situation locking out its workers in the future. The Journal de Montréal was a heavily mediatized conflict (some would argue it was overexposed in the media), and the end of the conflict has made this issue less important in everyone's minds, no matter what efforts the CSN may put behind promoting it.

Nothing changed outside of the Journal itself, to the point where people may forget about this conflict entirely in a few years.

Rue Frontenac may be the exception to this. It's still trying to figure out what it can be and how it can make money. (I, for one, would suggest less focus on things everyone else is covering, like Canadiens games and Tout le monde en parle episodes.) Even the most optimistic would admit its chances aren't that good. But everyone hopes it can survive and prove that good-quality original journalism is a viable business model.

If Rue Frontenac survives in the long term, it may be the only real lasting evidence that there ever was a lockout here, and a reminder of what the Journal de Montréal used to be.

Because whether you're on the side of the union or the employer, you have to admit that the Journal de Montréal won't ever be the quality it was when those 253 employees were working there.

Hell, it's even given up Frontenac St. itself.

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It’s over: Journal workers approve contract by 64%

February 26, 2011 – 8:20 pm| Posted in Media, Montreal

Locked-out workers of the Journal de Montreal have accepted - very reluctantly - an offer ending their two-year lockout.

After a 10-hour session inside a closed meeting at the Palais des Congrès, members of the Syndicat des travailleurs de l'information du Journal de Montréal voted 64.1% to approve a proposal by the mediator that will finally end the lockout that began on Jan. 24, 2009.

A back-to-work protocol still needs to be worked out. And approval is contingent on this being negotiated successfully. But it's unlikely anything will stop this deal from getting final approval.

The deal, which lasts five years, will see the Journal hire back 62 workers (plus one temporary worker), which includes:

  • 24 journalists (12 in news, seven in sports and five in arts)
  • five deskers
  • four photographers
  • four graphic artists
  • an editorial cartoonist (assuming Marc Beaudet wants to return)
  • a statistician (plus a part-time or temporary one)
  • two quality control people
  • one "adjointe"
  • 10 people in classified (nine salespeople and one customer service agent)
  • 10 people in the business office, including two accountants

The rest will share a $20 million severance package, whose method of splitting is up to them (something expected to cause a lot of tension as they decide how to calculate how much each worker gets). For those of them lucky enough to get the choice, they'll have two weeks to decide whether they want to rejoin their former newspaper.

Almost all of the Rue Frontenac personalities I talked to later Saturday night had already made up their minds: "No fucking way" are they going back to work for Quebecor, in the words of journalist Jessica Nadeau. Though some left open a slim possibility that they might accept a return, not wanting to close the door completely out of anger without thinking about it first, most of the core of Rue Frontenac made it abundantly clear that they are going to stay outside the grip of the Quebecor empire and try to make an independent publication of Rue Frontenac and RueFrontenac.com.

The contract is over 100 pages long and I'm just getting my first look at it. I'll post more details in the days ahead, but suffice it to say this is a huge victory for Quebecor and a giant defeat for the union.

But at least some people will get some money out of it.

As you wait for more of my thoughts, you'll find coverage of this story ... well, just about anywhere:

Reaction and analysis is coming in from:

  • The FPJQ, which sees this as reinforcing its worries about media concentration in Quebec
  • Le Devoir's Stéphane Baillargeon, who wonders if the managers who have been doing the work of journalists for the past two years won't see themselves out of their jobs soon
  • Le Soleil, which looks at how this affects the Journal de Québec
  • The right, which sees this as a victory against the unions
  • Mauvais Oeil, which humorously looks at how readers of the Journal and the rest of the world see the conflict

And reaction from the journalists themselves:

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New contract proposal to Journal de Montréal workers

February 24, 2011 – 8:52 pm| Posted in Business, Media

The CSN has announced that locked-out members of the Syndicat des travailleurs de l'information du Journal de Montréal will vote on a new contract offer proposed by the mediator appointed by the Quebec government.

Note that this does not necessarily mean there's an agreement in principle. The release mentions nothing about whether the union executive recommends the proposal, whether the employer will accept the proposal, or any details about the proposal itself. (UPDATE: Apparently the CSN is saying the union is, in fact, recommending the proposal, which is pretty huge -- oh wait, the union is now denying it has recommended the deal.)

The vote will take place Saturday at 10am at the Palais des congrès, and followed by a press conference.

You'll recall that the last vote on a proposal, in October, resulted in 89.3% of workers rejecting the offer.

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Some reading on Quebec’s anti-scab law

February 1, 2011 – 4:28 pm| Posted in In the news, Media

Hearings began today (finally a reason to watch the National Assembly channel!) into Quebec's labour laws, specifically the provisions against strikebreakers (scabs). They are prompted by the enduring two-year-old lockout at the Journal de Montréal, and the union's argument that laws forbidding the use of replacement workers during a labour conflict need to be updated because they only apply to workers who physically enter the employer's workspace.

An example to illustrate this is a company called Côté Tonic in Quebec City, which has been doing copy editing and page layout work for the Journal de Montréal during its lockout. Stories in Rue Frontenac and La Presse show that the small company did production work during the Journal de Québec lockout and had to fire people after that was resolved, but learned about an impending lockout at the Journal de Montréal before it was launched and even before the end of the labour contract for Journal de Montréal workers.

This information comes out now for a somewhat ironic reason: an employee who was laid off when she took maternity leave complained she was fired illegally. Her complaint was rejected because it was determined that the layoff happened after the Journal asked the company to reduce its workforce. But because labour relations board decisions are public, the dirty laundry comes out into the open.

The union representing locked-out workers claims there are all sorts of fly-by-night operations doing their work in secret, from customer service to page layout to accounting. But they've had difficulty gaining evidence about how they work, and under the current law there's nothing they can do about it anyway.

Also worth reading:

There's also the Twitter feed of Rue Frontenac's David Patry, or the hashtag #commissionJdeM. The hearings can also be viewed online, in case you have a few hours to waste.

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Fagstein: “En français SVP”

January 26, 2011 – 12:57 am| Posted in Media, Navel-gazing

The comments attached to this amuse me. Perhaps it's time I create some automated Google Translate version of this blog.

Or I could send my blog posts to QMI Agency's translation department.

(For the record, this is what the Google Translate version of the post referenced above looks like)

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The future of Rue Frontenac

January 25, 2011 – 3:57 pm| Posted in Business, Media

Rue Frontenac's newsroom

Rue Frontenac started as an idea, in that it was copied from an idea realized elsewhere. When the Journal de Québec was locked out for a year and a half, its workers launched a competing free daily and later a website called MédiaMatinQuébec.

The publication was a pressure tactic (a judge even ruled as such when Quebecor sought an injunction preventing them from publishing). It would keep people updated on the status of negotiations from the union's perspective. But more importantly, it would remind readers that the real power of the newspaper came from its journalists, who would continue to do their jobs despite being in a labour conflict.

In essence, the journalists protested their lockout by continuing to work.

Whether MédiaMatinQuébec succeeded in its mission of forcing the employer's hand by turning public opinion against it is a matter of debate. But it raised the profile of the locked-out workers, and journalists facing a labour conflict since then have made this idea part of their plans.

On Jan. 24, 2009, about six months after the end of the Journal de Québec lockout and less than an hour after an agreement not to launch a labour conflict had expired, 253 members of the Syndicat des travailleurs de l'information du Journal de Montréal were officially locked out of their jobs.

The lockout wasn't a surprise - the writing had been on the wall for months. So a plan was already in place when the lockout became official (for both the employer and the union). Journalists would work out of the STIJM's offices, which are next door to the Journal de Montréal's office building at 4545 Frontenac St., at the end of Mont Royal Ave.

But rather than a free daily, they decided to go with a website. Unlike Quebec City, Montreal already had two free daily newspapers (one of which is owned by Quebecor), and its larger area makes it less practical to distribute a newspaper on a daily basis. Four days after the lockout began, RueFrontenac.com was launched.

(The title is somewhat ironic - though next door to the Journal's offices on Frontenac, the STIJM is actually on Iberville St., just north of where Frontenac merges into it.)

Its team of journalists, working out of drafty offices without most of the usual office comforts, continued to work their beats, trying to come up with exclusives that would raise the website's profile. It's now considered a primary source of news and a major news organization in Montreal.

Rue Frontenac's first issue in October

In October 2010, after a successful test the year before with a special Canadiens issue, Rue Frontenac launched as a weekly tabloid newspaper to accompany the website. Rather than try to stay up to date with breaking news (much of it would be days old), the paper focused on features and exclusive reports. It was more of a magazine on newsprint than a newspaper.

Richard Bousquet, who has been coordinating Rue Frontenac in both its formats, says he worked seven days a week from August to December on this project, until he finally took a vacation over the holidays.

When it launched, Rue Frontenac had 1,400 distribution points, most shared with the free weekly Voir. Now, Bousquet says, it's more like 1,600. And distribution points in Quebec City have been added to those in the Mauricie, Eastern Townships and Outaouais regions. The publication is also taking names of people who would be interested in paid delivery.

The print run is 75,000 copies, and Bousquet wants a return rate of under 5%. Right now it's about twice that, but dropping as they adjust the number of copies for each stand.

The plan is that, with the exception of labour costs paid out by the union's strike fund, the paper should be self-sufficient financially, meaning that advertising revenue (and maybe subscription revenue) should pay for printing and distribution costs.

Advertising comes slowly

"Ça roule," union president Raynald Leblanc said during a press conference two weeks ago when asked about advertising in the paper edition. The reality is a bit more complex.

The first issue of Rue Frontenac had quite a bit of advertising, but it was mostly from unions showing solidarity, not businesses trying to make money.

A notable exception was Micro Boutique, the Apple dealer, which had a half-page ad in the first edition. Bousquet says they wanted in right away to take advantage of the media coverage surrounding the paper's launch. They knew a lot of people would be interested in that first issue.

For other corporate advertisers, the biggest problem was essentially a bureaucratic one: big advertising campaigns are planned and budgeted months in advance. This means there isn't much money for last-minute ads. Many advertisers are also worried about the long-term future of this newspaper if the labour conflict is eventually solved.

And then, of course, there are those who are worried about offending Quebecor, though that's not so much an issue as you might think, Bousquet says. "C'est pas un journal de combat," he clarifies. It's not afraid to say bad things about the media empire, but that's not its primary purpose, either. Obviously, they're not getting ads from Archambault or Videotron, but most other advertisers aren't afraid of what Quebecor might think.

(On Rue Frontenac's website, whose advertising is served by BV! Media, now owned by Rogers, ads for Videotron have appeared in the past, not because Videotron specifically wanted to be on RueFrontenac.com, but because the ads were displayed throughout the advertising network.)

As we enter into that 3-6-month window, more ads are showing up in the paper. We're entering RRSP season, which means a lot of ads from Desjardins, Bousquet offered as an example.

A profitable paper?

"On fait tout pour que Rue Frontenac continue à vivre," Bousquet says. Knowing that there's no way the Journal de Montréal will hire back all 253 workers or even a majority of that, the union eventually wants to offer the Rue Frontenac name to a publication that would be run by some of the workers who will be left behind.

It certainly won't be all the workers not hired back at the Journal who will be able to continue with Rue Frontenac. Forced to pay salaries on top of other expenses, its budget wouldn't be able to support 200 workers, or even 100, Bousquet admits.

Still, he feels strongly optimistic about Rue Frontenac's future as a small publication filling a niche as a weekly newspaper focused on in-depth, exclusive stories, and a website with mostly original breaking news.

Asked whether he thinks having an actually profitable newspaper is feasible, he responds: "Oui, il y a possibilité. On croit que économiquement c'est possible."

There are no big plans for the short term (at least, none Bousquet was willing to share), but they do plan to study their audience and their options. They're still collecting names as they figure out whether they should implement a home delivery service, and they're studying the possibility of increasing from one to two editions a week of the newspaper.

After the lockout

When a contract offer was voted down by a huge majority in the fall, and the union complained about an anti-competition clause as one of its main reasons for rejecting the deal, Quebecor CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau said the company would withdraw its demand that Rue Frontenac be shut down and that laid-off workers be barred from working for La Presse. (When the Journal de Québec conflict was settled, one of its demands was that MédiaMatinQuébec be shut down, which is why it is no longer online.)

There are still other issues on the table, the biggest one being the number of employees who would be allowed to return to work. Negotiations that have recently resumed are covered under a blackout that prevents both sides from commenting publicly, but I imagine that number is still a major issue.

La question qui tue

So if Rue Frontenac does continue beyond the lockout, perhaps with a handful of employees, what are its chances of success?

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Journal de Montréal lockout by the numbers

January 25, 2011 – 4:19 am| Posted in Media

Two years. 24 months. 730 days. 17,520 hours. 1.05 million minutes. 63 million seconds.

These are the figures in the Journal de Montréal lockout that are not in dispute. On Jan. 24, just after midnight, it celebrated - perhaps that's a bad choice of word - its second anniversary.

But the number that's drilled into everyone's head is 253. That's the number of employees that were officially locked out that day. The number is repeated over and over by the union, which refers to 253 families on the street, 253 people without jobs, 253 people working at Rue Frontenac. Some people only partially familiar with the conflict (the ones who use "lockout" and "strike" interchangeably") even refer to "253 journalists", unaware that the lockout also affects dozens of office staff.

Raynald Leblanc, the president of the Syndicat des travailleurs de l'information du Journal de Montréal, admits that 253 is a "symbolic" number. The list of lockoutés has 253 names on it, but many of those people - about 10% - are no longer contributing to the cause and no longer receive cheques from the strike fund. About 10, including columnist Bertrand Raymond, have decided to retire. Most of the others are still leaving open the option of coming back to work for the Journal, but are not receiving cheques either because they have found another job or because, Leblanc says, they are rich enough that they don't need the money. Only two have officially resigned.

The law, Leblanc says, is clear that even those who have taken jobs elsewhere to pay the bills can come back once the conflict is over. Of course, it will be their choice, and some who have since moved on will probably choose to stay in their new jobs, if there's even a job at the Journal to go back to.

Note: Numbers above might be off slightly, take them as estimates

Among the 230 people still "active" in the conflict, the level of that activity varies. There are some, like journalists Gabrielle Duchaine and Jean-François Codère, who are filing stories on a regular basis for Rue Frontenac, the website and newspaper setup as a pressure tactic and public relations campaign. There are some who contribute more occasionally to Rue Frontenac. And there are many, like the 31 people who work in classified ad sales, whose skills aren't really that transferrable. Many of those can be found on the picket lines outside the Journal de Montréal offices, or in newly created jobs like running the Rue Frontenac cafeteria. And there are some who have disappeared off the map completely for whatever reason.

For Pierre Karl Péladeau, the Quebecor CEO whose company owns the Journal, the 253 figure is fiction. He breaks the numbers down another way. For him, the number of permanent employees "active" in the conflict is only 179, discounting 45 contract employees and 29 people who have retired or otherwise quit their jobs. In the latest offer to the union, 52 of those people would continue to have jobs (among them only 17 journalists), and 127 jobs would be eliminated, but 31 of those employees are eligible for retirement.

Leblanc, at 57 years old, is one of those who could leave and start taking their pensions. But he asks rhetorically: "are we obliged to take retirement just because we're eligible?" The answer, of course, is no. Some people need more money and aren't financially stable enough to retire. And to Leblanc, forced retirement isn't much different from forced unemployment.

And so, as Year 3 of the Journal de Montréal lockout begins, and negotiations haven't given us any news recently, we wonder how long this conflict will last.

When it started in 2009, the union bragged that it had a two-year strike fund, enough to pay its employees about 70% of their salary (tax free) until 2011. Asked about that two weeks ago, Leblanc was categorical: "It won't run out."

I asked him where that guarantee comes from. He said it was from other unions. The CSN has made an example of this conflict and will keep putting money into it until it's over. They are determined not to lose this battle over money alone.

With both CSN and Quebecor having seemingly endless pits of reserve cash, the idea that one side could wait it out until the other had been brought to its knees financially has been exposed as a pipe dream.

A parliamentary committee will be holding hearings into this conflict next month. Which is good, because left to their own devices, it seems both sides are content to let this drag on forever.

Two years on: Media coverage

The various local media have noted the two-year anniversary with stories, among them:

and simple to-the-point stories from CBC, CTV, TVA, Presse Canadienne, Agence France-Presse, Projet J and, of course, Rue Frontenac itself.

UPDATE (Feb. 1): A great story in Concordia's The Link about the human cost of the lockout, talking to people including caricaturist Marc Beaudet.

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Journal de Montréal Lockout Anniversary 2: The Boring Sequel

January 13, 2011 – 2:00 am| Posted in Business, Media, Opinion

Three TV cameras and a handful of reporters at a press conference on Monday about the second anniversary of the Journal de Montréal lockout

Having nothing better to do on a Monday morning, I headed to a press conference announcing the second anniversary of the lockout at the Journal de Montréal. Miscalculating public transit travel time, I arrived a few minutes late, and passed a man carrying a TV camera down the stairs. I missed little of the press conference, but it was clear none of the journalists there were particularly impressed by what they were witnessing.

That impression was confirmed in the news coverage that came out of it, or the lack thereof. Articles for Métro, The Gazette, Radio-Canada, and, of course, Rue Frontenac. No mention, despite the three TV cameras present, on any of the local newscasts that evening, not even as a 10-second brief with anchor voice-over.

I have a feeling some of them might have expected the artists invited to this Jan. 24 concert to be present, giving at least a minimum amount of interesting video. Unfortunately, though this lockout affects dozens of people who know media very well, the union failed to create an event that would be interesting enough to capture the media's attention.

I noticed that fellow media-watchers like Nathalie Collard, Steve Proulx and Stéphane Baillargeon weren't at the press conference either. That's perfectly understandable. They've all written quite a bit about the lockout, and wouldn't have learned anything new here they couldn't pick up from the press release that was published during the press conference: there's a concert with Les Zapartistes, Bernard Adamus, Karkwa and Damien Robitaille, and nothing earth-shattering on the negotiation front. To have them transcribe a predictable statement from these people and then try to get a reaction from Quebecor would have been a waste of their talents. (Fortunately, I have no problem wasting my time on stuff like this.)

Notice the banner covering the window, reducing the amount of light coming in

On my way to the press conference, I bumped into a colleague in the journalism business, and we briefly discussed the lockout and how other journalists deal with it. We disagreed on whether people feel free to criticize the locked-out workers and are too afraid to be seen as cooperating with Quebecor (see Deschamps, Yvon). I have, on occasion, been critical of the union's positions and of Rue Frontenac (as I'm being here) without feeling as though I would be attacked for it or be punished for it somehow. (Then again, I haven't given any exclusive interviews to the Journal, either.)

But this all makes me wonder: Are we just getting tired of this conflict? The "253" workers who have been "on the street" for two years certainly are. Even if they're still getting paid a significant salary, even if they're playing in a media sandbox where they can do just about whatever they like without having to answer to any big corporate boss, even if they know most of them will probably never again set foot in the building at 4545 Frontenac St. The uncertainty of the future, living in limbo, it must get tiring after a while.

The rest of us, meanwhile, even those who follow the local media and think that the Journal de Montréal conflict is the biggest story of the past two years, we've run out of things to say. Negotiations are barely proceeding (Jean-François Lisée notwithstanding) and in some cases even going backwards. Even the name of this show they're organizing, Le Show du cadenas 2, reflects that Year 2 of this lockout is just the same as Year 1, and Year 3 probably won't be any different.

The print version of Rue Frontenac has spiced things up a bit, but even then the tiredness sets in. Richard Bousquet, who coordinates that project, took a two-week vacation over the holidays after working seven days a week on it since August.

Everyone is tired of this. But both sides will keep struggling to push ahead, and there's no end in sight.

The Show du Cadenas 2 is at 8 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 24, at Metropolis. Tickets are $20 at Admission or the STIJM/Rue Frontenac offices just north of the Journal de Montréal.

UPDATE (Jan. 31): Video highlights of the show from Rue Frontenac.

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Dear Véro and Louis

December 23, 2010 – 1:19 am| Posted in Opinion, Slow News Day, TV

Hi, how are you doing? You look a bit stressed. Here, have some tea and sit down.

OK... so, you probably know why I asked you here. That whole Bye-Bye thing. You know, you boycotting Quebecor and all. I don't know if it was your intention to create such a firestorm, but you should have expected it.

Two full pages in the Journal de Montréal on Tuesday devoted to your decision to settle the scores, as they say. Two articles from the Journal's Michelle Coudé-Lord condemning your decision and Radio-Canada for supporting you. That, of course, in turn has generated all sorts of press over at Gesca (a piece by Richard Therrien, a column by Hugo Dumas, a blog post by Patrick Lagacé) which has turned your Bye-Bye sequel into a media controversy 10 days before anyone actually sees it.

I know, I know, you're mad. You're both on Quebecor's enemies list and you're probably never going to come off. They used that giant media empire thing against you after the 2008 Bye-Bye and you felt like crap for months trying to deal with the fallout.

Here's the thing: The backlash wasn't some Quebecor empire fabrication. A lot of people took offence to some of the jokes in that television special. Even the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council had issues with it. Sure, Quebecor went crazy with it, mostly because it was funded with taxpayer money through Radio-Canada. But if you were going to boycott everyone who said mean things about the show, you'd be boycotting a lot of media.

Wait, hold on, can I finish? Please. Let me finish.

OK, so Quebecor doesn't like you. It's not like this is news. It's been the case for so long even I don't know why it started. I'd think you'd be used to it by now.

But this isn't the way to handle it. You're just playing their game, coming down to their level. It's childish, and I expect better from you. As Lagacé points out, you've just created a controversy when your goal, ostensibly, is to avoid exactly that.

It would be one thing if you were taking a stand because of the Journal de Montréal lockout, or because Quebecor had done something particularly evil, or to protest Quebecor pulling out of the Quebec Press Council. But your main reason for refusing to accommodate Quebecor news outlets at your press conference is the coverage that was given to the last Bye-Bye ... two years ago, before the Journal was even locked out.

Yeah, I know you haven't talked to them since, and this boycott isn't new, but nobody noticed before because the Journal doesn't talk about you unless you do something bad.

And surely you understand the bad precedent that's set when people refuse to speak to journalists whose coverage they don't like.

Plus, now you're bringing the people you're working with into the fray. Joël Legendre's relationship with the Journal is starting to look bipolar. He likes them, he hates them, he loves them, he won't speak to them... A bit silly, don't you think?

And come on, you're not new at this media thing. You've been in show business for years now. Véro, you're on Montreal's most listened to radio station every day, and you host one of Quebec's hottest new television shows. Louis ... I understand you also have a career. I think I saw your face on a DVD of something at Future Shop.

Louis, don't leave, I was just kidding. I know you work hard too. Come back.

OK, I realize Quebecor is this giant media behemoth, but you've shown that you don't need their cooperation to succeed. Heck, you should consider it a compliment that they focus so much attention toward you.

Like it or not, you signed up for this. Nobody forced you into becoming stars. You can't have your faces put up on billboards all over the place and then complain when a photographer takes a picture of you at the airport. You have the right to privacy, and you have the right to keep your children outside the spotlight, but you can't just disappear when the news about you is unflattering and not expect people to go looking for you.

I'm gonna talk to Michelle Coudé-Lord, try to talk some sense into her. But ... you're letting them play the victim here (letting the peanut gallery take their side). And if your goal is peace in this media war, this isn't the way you're going to get it.

Please bury the hatchet. Swallow your pride, or you're going to have a bad taste in your mouth for a long time.

Oh, and Véro, please, stop undressing me with your eyes. I mean, Louis is sitting right there. And he's ... wait, is he also undressing me with his eyes?

Dear Michelle Coudé-Lord,

Here, have a seat. I promise there aren't any Cloutier cooties on it.

How are you doing? Boy, you must be ready for a vacation. Almost two years now you've been without a reporting staff, having to fill the Arts & Spectacles section with wire pieces, stuff from other Quebecor publications and whatever original content you and your fellow managers can come up with. I'm not exactly shedding tears for your paper, but I understand if this period has caused some stress among its middle managers.

Anyway, so those articles you had in the paper. Two of them. Was it really necessary to devote a full page (plus a full section cover page) to the fact that the Bye-Bye crew wouldn't talk to you? And is it really surprising after what you did to them two years ago? You say that coverage after the 2008 Bye-Bye was fair and balanced, but you can't possibly say with a straight face that it wasn't excessive.

And really, "vengeance"? You make them sound like a dictator who destroyed an entire village because some woman in a bar wouldn't accept his propositions. They had a hissy fit, and now you're having a hissy fit over their hissy fit, forcing everyone else to have a hissy fit over your hissy fit over their hissy fit.

I explained to Véro and Louis that what they did wasn't a good idea. They were letting themselves be guided by emotion rather than wisdom.

But surely you understand that it's hypocritical for you to play the victim on behalf of Quebecor here. Your paper is no longer a member of the Quebec Press Council, arguing against regulation (even though it's not government-run and has no power to impose penalties) and in favour of the free market. You have to accept that freedom also means the freedom not to talk to you, even if this is the government-funded Radio-Canada.

You appeal to the size of your audience as if somehow without talking to you they could never hope to reach those people. As if that alone meant that anyone on the government payroll (or even who receives money from the government) must give you an interview. I see how you think answering your questions about a show during a press conference is like a government agency answering an access-to-information request about its expenses, but it's not. You want to interview a celebrity, and you're whining because you're being turned down.

And, come on Michelle. Certainly you realize the irony of complaining about how people aren't giving you interviews, and then refusing to speak to reporters from La Presse and Le Soleil about this very same issue.

I also found it funny that the page next to the one complaining about Véro and Louis is a full page puff piece devoted to how Quebecor creation Marie-Élaine Thibert has an album that went gold.

Looking at these pages, can you really blame people for getting the impression that Quebecor rewards its celebrities and attacks those who don't play by its rules?

Aren't you tired of being seen as a pawn of the Quebecor media narrative machine, whether or not you think it's true?

Think about it. Get some sleep. Maybe when you're rested you can see this with a clear head and realize all the damage this media war has done, and maybe you'll be the bigger person and decide to do something about it.

Please.

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Is Quebecor evil?

December 14, 2010 – 2:08 am| Posted in Media, Opinion

CORRECTION: This post originally stated that only one case of a scab working for the Journal had been proven. There are actually two that have gotten rulings from the labour board. Thanks to J.F. Codère for pointing it out in a comment.

N.B.: Une version française de ce billet a été publié dans Trente, le journal du Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec.

I've always liked to think of myself as open-minded. It's a good quality for a journalist, and one that I don't think enough of them have.

For most of this blog's existence, there has been a major labour conflict at a Quebecor-owned newspaper - the Journal de Québec in 2007 and 2008, and the Journal de Montréal in 2009 and 2010. In between there have been all sorts of depressing news for journalists in general as the media industry seems to be in a state of slow collapse.

Like many of my journalist colleagues, my first reaction to Quebecor's lockout of its two largest newspapers was to take the side of the workers. Whether or not I agreed with what they wrote when they were employed by Quebecor, they are mere pawns in the media game being played by the great Quebecor Empire. They are the Luke Skywalkers to Pierre Karl Péladeau's Darth Vader.

But in my admittedly limited experience as a journalist, I've learned that situations aren't nearly as black and white as they may seem to be. Society's villains aren't all Hitler-like caricatures of pure cartoonish evil, motivated solely by greed and hatred of puppies. And its heroes aren't all pure good.

So while some may throw it out as a given, I sit here and ask myself a question that requires a lot of thought before I can answer:

Is Quebecor evil?

Read More »

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Rue Frontenac hits the streets

October 28, 2010 – 3:50 pm| Posted in Media, Montreal

The first edition of the Rue Frontenac weekly (a collector's edition!)

Rue Frontenac, the website run by locked-out workers of the Journal de Montréal, launched a paper version of its public-relations campaign on Thursday morning.

The first edition of what will become a weekly newspaper is 48 pages, all of them colour.

It has a cover piece by Gabrielle Duchaine on how some pregnancy crisis centres hide their militant anti-abortion stance in order to manipulate expectant mothers. (Online, the piece is presented as a Flash graphic.) There are also interviews with Guy A. Lepage (one of Rue Frontenac's biggest supporters among the artistic community - the paper rewards him by devoting an entire page to showing just his head bigger-than-life-size) and Louis Morissette, a piece about how Quebecor has pulled ads from Le Devoir (supposedly as punishment for Le Devoir's criticisms of the Journal), and the usual arts and sports news you'd find in a newspaper, plus some puzzles.

Notably, though, there is no wire content (and, of course, no advertorials). All of the articles are written by Rue Frontenac's journalists. This means the paper won't present anything close to a complete perspective on the news, but the point is to show that they can still produce serious, quality journalism worth its weight in gold.

Only time will tell whether it's worth the price. It's not cheap to print 75,000 copies of a newspaper.

This is the second time Rue Frontenac has actually printed on newsprint. A one-off special issue last year at the start of the Canadiens' season appears to have been well received, at least enough for them to try again.

The paper has advertising, the vast majority of which is from other unions. There are also ads from sympathetic left-wing politicians including Québec solidaire's Amir Khadir, the Projet Montréal Plateau team, and NDP MP Thomas Mulcair.

A man hands out copies of the Journal de Montréal for free outside the Mont-Royal metro station

It was 8:30am on Thursday as I came out of the Mont-Royal metro station, the heart of the Plateau. Just inside the doors was a man in an orange vest handing out copies of Metro. Just outside, another man in another vest handing out copies of 24 Heures. Next to him, a lady in a La Presse hat handing out free copies of La Presse. And nearby, what I had originally confused for a homeless man handing out free copies of the Journal de Montréal.

For the most part, commuters breeze by not touching any newsprint. Some will pick a paper they like, or just take the ones that normally aren't free. Some collect the different papers.

What's clear is that even here, in the plateau known for its "clique" and which elected Québec solidaire's only MNA so far, any effect of the Journal de Montréal conflict on its newspaper's popularity is invisible. People young and old, poor and rich were taking copies of the newspaper at the same rate as those who took La Presse or the free papers. The fact that it is heavily reliant on wire copy and overhyped articles from its remaining managers seems to be of little consequence to those rushing to work in the morning.

That, above all, is what Rue Frontenac has to fight: indifference to their cause from regular folk. The paper might put enough wandering eyes on the quality of their journalism to make an impact. Or it might just annoy Pierre Karl Péladeau even though it's not doing him much harm. Or it might do nothing, coexisting with its writers' previous employer for months or years as a settlement of the conflict becomes no closer to arriving.

A stack of Rue Frontenac papers at a metro on Mont Royal Ave.

Not seeing any Rue Frontenacs at the metro station, I made my way eastward in the direction of the giant Journal de Montréal logo. I eventually picked up a copy at a recently opened Metro grocery store near the Journal's offices. I was a bit surprised by this. Even though there were spaces for all sorts of publications, the fact that a major company would appear to take sides in the conflict is noteworthy. (Though the fact that the paper is distributed through Diffumag allows it to reach a lot of distribution points quickly.)

(Micro Boutique, a reseller of Apple products, also took a stance with a half-page ad in Rue Frontenac.)

A Google map shows the hundreds of distribution points for Rue Frontenac, spread out all over the city and surrounding region as far as Valleyfield, St. Jean sur Richelieu and Assomption. There are also distribution points in the Mauricie, Sherbrooke and Outaouais regions, and subscriptions are available for an unpublicized price.

A van appeals to Cardinal Turcotte to stop a lockout

Just across the parking lot from the Journal's offices (and ironically just after the point where Frontenac St. turns into Iberville St.), a handful of union members at the offices of Rue Frontenac chat jovially before they pile into a van with a giant photo of Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte on top. Even though this conflict has been going on for 21 months, morale hasn't been as low as it had been expected to be. The rejection of a contract offer the union had considered insultingly bad brightened spirits and resolve even though it meant the conflict would last longer.

Maybe it's naive. Or maybe it'll work.

A typo in the website's address got by the proofreaders on Page 3.

More coverage

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Journal de Montréal: 89.3% vote against offer

October 12, 2010 – 4:58 pm| Posted in Media, Montreal

Workers of the Journal de Montréal have voted 89.3% against a contract offer that would have seen only 50 of 253 locked-out employees keep their jobs.

The offer was the result of negotiations held under a blackout, and while neither side would confirm that one was on the table (they wouldn't even confirm that a meeting was being held to vote on it), some details had leaked out through the media, which notes that it is unchanged from the offer the employer tabled last month:

  • The deal would have seen only 50 of 253 jobs kept, among them only 17 journalists (out of 65), five editors and four photographers. The employer would choose who could keep their jobs
  • It would have required the shutting down of RueFrontenac.com, at least temporarily (UPDATE: No, it was permanent) and a promise not to launch any competing newspapers
  • Those losing their jobs would be prohibited from working for La Presse or Cyberpresse for a period of time
  • In exchange, the employer would offer unspecified severance pay to those losing their jobs

The vote is unsurprising, if only because 80% of those voting would have lost their jobs (and been prevented from seeking equivalent jobs elsewhere), and even though some of those might have been close to retirement and decided that some money was better than none, a strong feeling of solidarity in the union was more than enough to overcome those who were tired of the conflict and wanted a quick end at any cost.

Even though the lockout is in its 21st month, the Rue Frontenac operation is still in high gear, and is in fact gearing up. The union plans to launch a weekly paper version of Rue Frontenac this month. Meanwhile, there are hints of a parliamentary commission to negotiate an end to the conflict.

The union was quick to issue a release announcing the offer's rejection (the blackout having been lifted). It includes this quote from union head Raynald Leblanc: "C'est une insulte envers nous, mais aussi envers tous les lecteurs du Journal de Montréal. Comment peut-on prétendre faire un journal de qualité avec aussi peu de personnel?"

Selon lui, le plan de Quebecor est simple. Moins d'information, plus de profits. En fait, la nouvelle salle de rédaction du Journal de Montréal n'aurait plus de journalistes à l'économie, ni aucun chroniqueur salarié. Tout proviendrait de l'extérieur, via l'Agence QMI, qui bafoue sans vergogne le principe d'étanchéité des salles de nouvelles.

Pire, l'entreprise a indiqué vouloir garder ses 25 cadres à la rédaction, ceux-ci se retrouveraient donc à superviser 32 employés. « Il est clair que l'arrogance de Quebecor est liée à l'interprétation restrictive faite par les tribunaux des dispositions anti-briseurs de grève. S'il y avait un tel ratio de cadres dans le système de santé, Le Journal de Montréal, Le Journal de Québec, TVA et LCN en feraient leurs manchettes et dénonceraient cette situation absurde », affirme Raynald Leblanc.

Quebecor also issued a release saying it was "profoundly disappointed" in the offer's rejection. It gave its side of events in the next day's Journal, downplaying the number of job cuts by playing around with numbers of part-time staff, those on disability or those near retirement.

Rue Frontenac, which stayed away from the story until after the meeting (becoming the only news outlet not to report on the story at first) simply pointed to other news outlets' reports on the subject (for "objectivity's" sake) and then published this rather non-objective piece on the subject.

LCN, to their credit, covered the vote fairly.

UPDATE: More commentary from:

Trente also interviews Leblanc on his feelings about the offer.

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Rue Frontenac puts it on paper

September 6, 2010 – 5:29 pm| Posted in Media, Montreal

Rue Frontenac's first attempt at a paper edition last September

You might remember last September, just before the start of the Canadiens' season, the locked-out journalists and other workers of the Journal de Montréal published a special print edition. It was just a one-time thing, but it got read and now they want to try for something more permanent.

Last week, Rue Frontenac announced that a print edition would be made on a weekly basis (Thursdays) and distributed throughout the Montreal area (from St. Jerome to St. Jean sur Richelieu) starting in late October.

Like most newspapers these days, this one promises to have more features and analysis, keeping the day-to-day breaking news for the website.

The announcement was enough to prompt stories in other media:

From those stories we get some more details:

  • The paper will be called Rue Frontenac
  • Distribution will be a minimum of 50,000
  • The paper will be big - at least 48 pages to start
  • The union expects that non-labour costs will be paid by advertising and other revenue
  • Distribution will be through newsstands and in person by locked out workers (the other newspaper primarily distributed by handing it to people is 24 Heures, which is sure to make for some interesting mornings in front of metro stations)
  • BV!Media, which owns Branchez-Vous and provides online advertising for Rue Frontenac, will help supply advertising for the print product

The Gazette's story also provides some stats on RueFrontenac.com: 300,000 unique visitors and 2.2 million page views monthly.

A paper edition was successful in Quebec City during the Journal de Québec lockout, mainly because there are no free daily newspapers in that city. In Montreal, there are two free dailies, three francophone subscription dailies, the weekly Voir, plus all the anglo publications, community newspapers and weekly news magazines.

It remains to be seen how many people will opt for the union paper over the many other options out there.

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Fab Fabrice does the unfathomable

July 26, 2010 – 11:21 pm| Posted in Media, Montreal, Opinion

Fabrice de Pierrebourg

La Presse scored a major coup last week, hiring investigative reporter Fabrice de Pierrebourg, who has been breaking stories for Rue Frontenac since he and 252 others were locked out from the Journal de Montréal in January 2009, a lockout that just marked its 18-month anniversary.

De Pierrebourg was the posterboy for the lockoutés' argument that the true value of the Journal de Montréal came from hard-working investigative journalists, which their newspaper has replaced with wire stories, freelance opinionators and overhyped reporting from managers.

Henry Aubin named him one of the "watchdogs of democracy" in December for his scoops about city hall and the municipal election campaign. He was just as useful before he got locked out, perhaps best known for breaching security at Trudeau airport to prove a point.

De Pierrebourg was also one of nine employees fired by the Journal for storming the office while locked out - as part of a peaceful but illegal demonstration - in July 2009. While Patrick Lagacé says it's unrelated (because negotiations began weeks ago), de Pierrebourg tells Rue Frontenac that was the final straw.

The news of de Pierrebourg's hiring was met with mixed reviews. It's a huge move for La Presse (though not unprecedented - the guy who made the announcement was himself hired from the Journal de Montréal back in 2006).

And speaking of La Presse, I guess those financial problems that nearly forced them to shut down less than a year ago, until the union made serious concessions, are a thing of the past. Not only did they take on a new high-profile hire, but they've made 17 temporary workers permanent. (One of those workers I spoke to had no idea why, though that person wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.)

Aside from being good news for La Presse, de Pierrebourg's hiring is also good for him. He has a proper job again. The anxiety and stress is gone.

It's bad news for the Journal de Montréal (at least at first glance), which has lost a solid investigative reporter.

But it's also bad for Rue Frontenac. And if the comments attached to its story are any indication, his now ex-colleagues are supportive of his escape but still saddened at losing a high-profile member of their cause.

The beginning of the end?

Though I hate to use the term "trend", I have to wonder about who else might follow in de Pierrebourg's footsteps. Bertrand Raymond, the most high-profile columnist on the picket lines, announced in January that he would "retire" - and never again return to the Journal.

Raymond has, of course, hardly retired. He writes now for RDS, putting out a column about twice a week on average. Like de Pierrebourg, Raymond has simply found an employer that he can live with.

Both Raymond and de Pierrebourg gave similar reasons for leaving: they couldn't fathom the idea of going back to work for the Journal de Montréal, for Quebecor and the managers who put them out on the street.

It's a sentiment echoed by Jean-François Codère, when I interviewed Rue Frontenac's technology guy in January. I asked him how they would be able to work out their differences with their managers once the conflict ends, and he said he didn't know. Codère has turned down other job offers to stay at Rue Frontenac, but can he and the rest keep this up forever?

The Journal de Montréal isn't showing any signs of cracking. It's still publishing seven days a week (soon it will be the only Montreal newspaper to do so), and so much of the work of producing it is outsourced that they've made it seem almost transparent to its readers. (The number of people who have moral objections to reading a newspaper produced during a lockout are far outweighed by people who don't give a rat's ass about it.)

De Pierrebourg said he felt bad leaving his colleagues at Rue Frontenac. He should. Not because what he did was wrong, but because whether he wanted to or not his departure hurts the cause of those still locked out.

As this labour conflict drags out into the long term, more departures like this are inevitable. Some who are close to retirement age will just decide to give up. Some who aren't might take better jobs elsewhere. And as the union's strike fund starts running out, the rest might not have a choice.

And as the cream of the crop gets poached, what's left will be those who can't get jobs elsewhere. Those who work in classified sales or other non-editorial jobs, who have spent decades in a highly specialized function that doesn't translate well into the job market.

By then, the argument that the Journal is a lesser paper without these people begins to fall apart.

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