Lock-out, strike and Média Matin Québec

UPDATE (May 10, 2007)

MédiaMatin will continue to publish as another court injunction was denied today

On April 24, 2007 a new free daily newspaper paper called MédiaMatin Québec was launched by 120 editorial and office employees who were locked out at Quebecor's Le Journal de Québec. Eighty press workers then followed in a supportive strike.

• Free 24-page tabloid

• Considering doubling the press run from 40,000 to 80,000 and soliciting advertising to make the paper self-sufficient.

• Competes with Le Journal de Québec - which Quebecor has continued to produce in Toronto - and with Quebec City's other daily, Le Soleil.

Du déjà vu
Grant Robertson, media reporter for the Globe and Mail notes with irony how the Journal de Québec and the Journal de Montreal were themselves successfully launched 40 years ago during newspaper strikes at Montreal's La Presse and Quebec City's Le Soleil.

MédiaMatin intends to publish as long as the lock-out persists while a Quebecor spokesman says Quebecor is trying to find a way to halt publication of MédiaMatin.

Legal battle
Quebecor spokesman Luc Lavoie charged the union was just waiting for the lockout to spring its rival paper and Quebecor is looking for legal ways to shut it down. The Quebec Superior Court rejected the Quebecor/Sun Media request for a provisional injunction to stop the publication of MédiaMatin.

But both sides were anticipating the lock-out. Le Journal de Québec created a backup newsroom at the Toronto Sun, which also belongs to Quebecor, and shifted its classified advertising operation to Kanata in Ottawa.

Le Journal made in Toronto
So the largest French-language daily in Quebec's capital city... is being produced in Toronto on the third floor of the Toronto Sun. (No Toronto Sun union members are doing work on Le Journal de Québec)

MédiaMatin Québec
735, av. Pruneau
Local 150
Québec
(418) 688-5550


More info here and here and here