Martin O’Hanlon, the director of CWA Canada, delivered the keynote speech at the Guild Sector Conference this past weekend. You can read the entire address, provided to us by Martin himself. A snippet:

Conservatives and progressives may be chanting the

same economic mantra – jobs, jobs, jobs. But progressives

understand that jobs are useless unless they pay a decent

wage.

It’s a similar thing with journalism. There’s journalism and

then there’s quality journalism. Quality journalism requires

time and resources to find a story, do the necessary legwork

and write it thoughtfully. And that costs money.

You get what pay for. So what do companies expect when

they cut staffing and wages to the bone? How the hell can a

reporter look for corruption at City Hall if he has to write five

stories a day? And what kind of journalist are you going to

get for a lousy wage?

It’s bad for workers, bad for society and dangerous for

democracy.