The six regional daily newspapers of the Coops de l’information (CN2i) will no longer be printed in paper format from the end of December 2023. About a hundred positions, which represents about a third of the organization’s workforce, will have to even being eliminated, in particular via a program of voluntary departures.
“We are dealing with the same readership trends as everywhere else: a decrease in our paper subscriptions and an increase in our digital subscriptions. In the last year, our two curves have even crossed, which means that now we have more digital subscribers than paper”, explains at The Press the director general of the Coops de l’information, Geneviève Rossier.
Arrived at her post in March and appointed last January, the manager concluded a tour of newsrooms on Wednesday, during which the issue was discussed with employees. She maintains that the choice to put an end to paper has been in the air since the creation of co-ops, more than three years ago, in 2019. “The choice we are making has been announced for a long time. already to the employees and the union,” she says.
The reality is that we cannot continue to see the decrease in paper, with all the advertising revenue that has leaked to GAFAM. The decision had to be made. We can no longer maintain two teams to do two things at once. We are convinced that the time is right for CN2i now.
Geneviève Rossier, Executive Director of Information Coops
Since June 2020, newspapers The right, The sun, The gallery, Le Nouvelliste, The Voice of the East And The Daily kept a single paper edition, the Saturday one. The last printing date for these six newspapers should be around December 31st.
Three job categories
In total, a hundred of the 350 positions in the cooperatives will be affected by the cuts, some of which are first of all already “unoccupied by attrition”, says Mme Rossier. “Then there is a second category which is directly linked to the production of paper which will be affected, since these are functions which the company will no longer need with the transition”, she explains.
The third category, the one that should affect the most employees according to the director general, includes positions that will be “subject to voluntary departures”. The cooperative hopes in fact that these voluntary departures will make it possible to avoid layoffs. “Obviously, we don’t yet know who will raise their hand, it remains the unknown, but on our side, we try to do everything to protect the newsrooms. This is the raison d’être of our companies,” insists Geneviève Rossier.
Discussions will also be started next week with the unions of the six newspapers, with the aim of building a “clear and precise plan” for the continuation of voluntary departures, by next June.
“Then, people will have a period to give their answer and reflect,” says the DG. This one is however categorical: “We are not in the process of eliminating any of the six brands of our group. ” ” We [a bon espoir] that we will be able to maintain our production levels and ensure the mission of each of the newspapers,” she continued.
An opening, says the union
On the union side, it is said that management has not yet given a specific plan, but that there is an opening to find the best way to ensure the sustainability of CN2i with the least negative impact for employees, responds the president of the National Federation of Communications and Culture of the CSN, Annick Charette. “The atmosphere is not [à la confrontation]. »
The abolition of positions has already begun indirectly, since the cooperative recently decreed a hiring freeze, says Annick Cart.
Because its six dailies will thus be entirely distributed on digital platforms, CN2i also plans to make available a new web interface for its sites as well as new applications. These should be revealed soon. A digital subscription to the group’s platforms has been available since November 2020.
The six cooperatives were created in December 2019, on the initiative of employees and managers, who managed to raise public and private funding of approximately $21 million, in particular from the Mouvement Desjardins and the Fonds de solidarité FTQ. .
With The Canadian Press