Despite yesterday’s decision that said many of the people who stepped in at the Journal de Québec were scabs, the union representing workers at the Journal de Montréal held a news conference and issued a press release this morning saying that they expect to be locked out within days of their contract expiring on Dec. 31. They’re calling for a conciliator to step in and get negotiations started again.

UPDATE: The government has appointed Pierre-Marc Bédard as conciliator.

Patrick Lagacé has some comments, and Steve Proulx also has some thoughts, including the fact that the Quebecor-owned free daily 24 Heures has practically doubled its staff recently.

This comes as negotiations at The Gazette are set to resume in January, and an arbitration hearing about outsourcing of editorial work is set to be heard in February. The prospect of two of Montreal’s four major daily newspapers being crippled by labour disruption is very real.

Oh, and Sun Media (which owns the Journal) just announced they’re cutting 600 jobs.