FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Press Release – April 13, 2008

CEP Workers overwhelmingly vote for strike at multi-national printing company

Members of CEP Local 900G gave their bargaining committee an unprecedented strike mandate for the Winnipeg location of Transcontinental Printing.

The employees voted 99 per cent in favour of strike action at a meeting Sunday afternoon. The massive support for Local 900G’s bargaining committee came in the wake of the employer’s proposed gutting of the Collective Agreement at Transcontinental’s LGM location. President John Webster said he has never seen such a vicious set of proposals before.

“Our committee will use this strike mandate to enforce our rights and to keep hard-fought language and wage conditions in our agreement,” said Webster. “We are not interested in negotiating backwards.”

LGM tabled concessions that include the elimination of the pension plan, elimination of premiums, reduction of vacations to the minimum prescribed by law, mandatory overtime, a move to a 24/7 operation with the removal of language on press staffing, and a reduction of overtime rates from two times the hourly rate to 1.5 times. The Employer has threatened if the workers do not accept these conditions LGM will shutter the plant that has a 50-year history and put 141 people out of work.

LGM prints commercial material including magazines, Trader Publications (owner of auto/truck Traders and the Buy and Sell) and assorted printed products for distribution regionally and across the country.

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