Freedom is just another word for no job security

Barbara Amiel
Daily Telegraph

The other night, as I was lying in bed, I turned to my husband, Conrad Black, and said, "My lord, bring me the head of a Calgary Herald striker on a platter. And peel me a grape while you're up, won't you, darling?"

"There, there, Babs," Conrad said as he summoned one of his Daily Telegraph journalists to peel the grape for me. "Now don't you worry your pretty head about that nasty little dust-up in the colonies. That nice David Radler will tend to everything."

"Oh, but if he doesn't, will you fire him? Please, Conrad, just for me?"

"Just for you, Babs," Conrad assured me.

Oh, I do so love it when Conrad's being masterful. I know Herald employees could learn to love it, too, if only they would put down their silly picket signs and let him ravish them. They should just lie back and think of England. That's what I do.

Of course, I'm in England anyway, safe from the brutish rabble who swallow their leftie pills every morning and take to the streets of Calgary with their signs and leaflets. Contrary to what those strikers pathetic cannon fodder for the labour movement that they are say, Conrad does know where Calgary is. He has a map on his wall with colored pins stuck in the cities where he owns newspapers. Calgary is, appropriately, the red pin.

For what is happening in Calgary does indeed have red overtones. I am violently opposed to anything I remotely perceive as red. So violently opposed to red am I that I stopped wearing blush on my pale, gaunt cheeks because it comes only in shades of pinko and red. Labour unions, strikes, contracts! All this fuss over a seniority clause! Why on earth do these peons think they deserve a seniority clause? I don't even have one and I'm Conrad's wife! I could be replaced by a freelancer any day, but you don't hear me complaining.

Of course, if that happens, Conrad will provide for me just the way he's providing for all those journalists at the Jerusalem Post whom he wants to turn from tenured slackers into tough-as-nails freelancers.

This kind, kind man could simply cut these people loose but he chooses not to! His conscience won't allow it. He is so concerned about each and every one of his employees that he wants to make sure they get freelance pay. He calls it outplacement assistance. That is how much he values them. Concern like that at a corporate level is just so lacking these days.

My darling is so misunderstood! He is doing this for the sake of integrity in journalism. You see, Conrad believes that as long as there are journalists employed full-time at a newspaper, there can be no integrity. When a newspaper has absolutely no journalists on staff, it represents a truly free press because the people who write for it keep changing all the time.

Look at me! I've done wonderfully well free-lancing. I write for Macleans, the national Canadian magazine named for a brand of toothpaste. I write for a wide range of Conrad's newspapers. I'm rich and comfortable. What's wrong with those picket-line propagandists that they can't do the same? Don't they know how to marry into money?

You can't snuggle up to a seniority clause on a cold night. But when it comes time for my own outplacement assistance, I want the flat in Kensington.