La Presse may stop presses over costs

North America's biggest French-language broadsheet is threatening to cease publication on Dec. 1.

Montreal newspaper La Presse toldstaff in an email Thursday thattheir union has three months to reach a new cost-cutting deal with management.

Under its current business model, La Presse can't afford to maintain its day-to-day activities, said Caroline Jamet, vice-president of communications for the newspaper.

Employees will have to give up something to contribute to cost-cutting, she said.

"We've developed a strategy to permit La Presse to migrate towards a new model and have agreements in place with financial institutions for new financing," Jamet said. "All that's left is the part of the employees, it's the only part left to complete the equation."

Concessions being sought

Management is seeking several concessions from the union, includingthe end of a four-day work week for full-time pay. As many as 100 jobs could be cut,Jamet said.

The union is open to discussing concessions as long as La Presse releases all its financial information, said union spokesman Yvan Berthelot.

"We are analysing management's demands, and employees are open to concessions," he told reporters gathered outside La Presse's headquarters on St-Laurent Boulevard, in Old Montreal.

"The more transparent management is, the more we'll understandthe company's real [financial] situation, which we don't know right now."

Contract talks resumed at the newspaper earlier this year,afterthe last collective agreement expired Dec. 31.

La Presse employs about 700 people spread across eight different unions, including some 240 employees that arepart of the editorial union Syndicat des travailleurs de l'information de La Presse (STIP).

The newspaper has suffered financially this year, likeother media outlets slammed by collapsing advertising revenues brought onby the global recession.

In June, the newspaper ceased publishing on Sundays to reduce production costs.

At the time, publisher Guy Crevier said he hoped to reduce overall costs by $26 million.

La Presse has won numerous national and international awards for its coverage of Canadian and international issues.

La Presse is the flagship newspaper of Gesca Ltee, a wholly owned division of Power Corp.