The “Saint John 7” strikers, from left: Gary Stackhouse, Donnie Robertson, Paul Jensen, Jay Delong, Rob Weir and Michelle Day. Not pictured: Nancy Matheson
They’re known as the “Saint John 7,” or, as CWA Canada Director Martin O’Hanlon calls them, “The Magnificent 7.”
The seven brave, striking workers in the southeastern Canadian town of Saint John, New Brunswick, are being hailed as an “inspiration” by their country’s labor movement. And, thanks to the Rock/Top 40/Oldies station they’ve launched online, people around the world know their story.
The shorthand version is this: Seven grossly underpaid employees working at a trio of community radio stations, owned by a Rupert Murdoch wannabe, finally reach their limit. They quietly reach out to the Canadian Media Guild, sign cards seeking a union and are certified as a bargaining unit in June 2011.
Their employer never sees it coming, so there is no American-style anti-union campaign — that is, not until the union is a done deal Since then, the company has publicly smeared the union, created a climate of fear and hostility, retaliated against workers — slashing one man’s income significantly — and refused to bargain in good faith.
On June 25, the seven — five on-air personalities, a producer and a receptionist — went on strike. Their determination and solidarity haven’t waned. They are humbled by the support from local unions, from their larger community and the businesses honoring an advertising boycott, and from CMG and CWA.
“I’m really glad that we chose the Guild,” unit President Gary Stackhouse said, recalling how good it felt when CWA President Larry Cohen talked about the Saint John struggle in a speech to CMG convention. “The Guild seems to ‘get it,’” Stackhouse said. “The seven of us, we’re seven people among hundreds of thousands in CWA, but in the big picture, this isn’t about seven people in Saint John, New Brunswick. This is about a dangerous trend — blatant outward attacks on unions. I think members in Canada and the United States understand what an important fight this is.”
He said Saint John is a strong labor community with about 30 percent of workers in unions. Together, fellow unions have launched an “adopt a striker” effort and issued a call for advertisers to boycott the three MBS radio stations involved.
“In terms of sheer numbers, we estimate about 30 to 40 advertisers have left,” said Stackhouse, who ordinarily is on-air at MBS’s “Big John” rock station. “But in terms of lost revenue, it’s been much bigger than that. What they’ve got left now are crumbs. At a minimum, we figure we’ve cut their revenue in half.”
Listeners who boycott have a new option: An online station, www.RadioFreeSaintJohn.fm, combining the music formats of the three MBS stations. Stackhouse says they’ve heard from people as far away as Scandinavia who are enjoying the mix — oldies fans who are learning to like Lady Gaga and teenagers rocking out to Led Zeppelin, followed by the Beach Boys.
Despite advertisers and listeners disappearing, Robert Pace, the owner of MBS, or Maritime Broadcasting, hasn’t budged. He’s put up an expensive fence around the radio station property and hired two security guards at what the union estimates is $30 an hour. Stackhouse does the math: Pace is spending $60 an hour for security, on top of the advertising losses, when, “if he gave us everything we asked for, it would come to about $20 an hour total — for all seven of us,” he said.
The highest paid worker, Donnie Robertson, is a celebrated local radio personality who, after 41 years at the station, makes just $40,000 a year. From there, Stackhouse said wages go all the way down to $10.58 cents an hour — just over Canada’s $10 minimum wage.
In Saint John, a community of about 140,000, the average wage is $20.50, based on data from the Canadian Labour Congress. Yet the company is offering the MBS professionals only $11.57 an hour on average. The workers, who haven’t had a cost of living increase in years, have proposed wages that average $15.48 an hour. “That represents about 75 percent of the average wage for the city,” Stackhouse said. “So clearly we’re not shooting for the moon or being unreasonable.”
O’Hanlon, who’s walked the picket lines with the workers, is stunned by the employer’s audacity, but heartened by the “courage and dignity of the Magnificent 7.”
“They’re enduring incredible stress and hardship as they fight for a bare raise that would lift wages for some over the poverty line — yes, really! — while MBS uses scabs and arrogantly refuses to make a decent offer,” O’Hanlon said. “We’ll do whatever it takes to help them achieve a fair deal because no one deserves to be treated the way MBS treats its employees.”