Source: Globe and Mail

The Toronto Star is planning what will likely be "the biggest restructuring of the Star's work force in its history," including the outsourcing of some editing and production jobs, publisher John Cruickshank said in an internal memo.

"We must find the best way to operate our business at the lowest possible cost, including contracting out non-core functions where there is a sound business case to do so," he wrote in the memo, which was sent to employees yesterday.

"It won't be easy. Changes will affect every job in every corner of the organization."

The Star is looking into contracting out jobs to help cut costs at the paper. Duties that could be outsourced include copy editing, pagination and the design and layout of the paper's advertisements.

In the wake of the announcement, some employees met with representatives of the Southern Ontario Newsmedia Guild late in the afternoon.

"It was a packed house," said Maureen Dawson, the guild unit chair for the Star. "People are numb. They're in shock, they're angry ... There's so many people involved. I've been through this a couple of times now."

The union said the company has indicated it would try to outsource up to 100 editing jobs at the paper. The company declined to confirm that number. The Star has an editorial staff of almost 400.

In July, the Star announced it would cut 27 jobs in its classified advertising call centre, a process that would take three months. The cuts are now complete, and those jobs have been outsourced to a company in Buffalo, Star spokesman Bob Hepburn said yesterday.

A major part of the circulation call centre was outsourced in 2007. Most of that work is now done in Halifax, and a small part is done in India, Mr. Hepburn said.

The Star is not alone in taking such measures. CanWest Global Communications Corp. has centralized some editorial services at most of its papers, a practice at issue during a strike by employees of the Montreal Gazette earlier this year. The union objected to the Gazette's owner sending pagination duties to Hamilton, Ont.-based CanWest Editorial Services, which says it also handles work for the Washington Post, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Winnipeg Free Press, and the Dallas Morning News.

The Canadian Press also offers outsourcing services.

U.S. newspapers have also been a part of the outsourcing trend. The Miami Herald began outsourcing copy editing of certain sections of the paper to a New Delhi-based company called Mindworks in 2008, and the Orange County Register contracted page layout to the same company a few months later.

Mr. Hepburn would not say whether jobs at the Toronto Star would be outsourced within Canada or abroad.

The Star also announced yesterday it is offering severance packages to employees who choose to leave. Workers would be given three weeks of severance for each year on the job, up to 85 weeks. The paper has no target for how many jobs need to go, Mr. Hepburn said.

Many newspapers, including The Globe and Mail, have faced layoffs and buyouts over the past year as they struggled to cope with falling ad revenue and the exodus of readers to the Internet.

"We understand that there are concerns about revenue. We see that," Ms. Dawson said. "We've been willing to sit down with them ... There are ways to keep the work here."

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