E.W. Scripps sent layoff notices to 268 people at the start of August, part of what the company calls the next phase of a transformation plan. The plan involves centralising newsroom functions, launching round-the-clock local streaming channels and using more automation as audiences keep drifting away from broadcast television. Read that sentence twice. Centralising, streaming, automating. Those three words describe every local broadcast restructure of the past decade, and they arrive in that order for a reason.

TORONTO - On Friday, as roughly 70 child care workers ran inventive, world-expanding programs, the President of CUPE 2484 attempted to hand deliver a message from workers and parents to the head office of Ideal Child Services Group. Management, though, was nowhere to be found, so Jess Tomas slid the petition and reams of signatures under the door of their darkened office. The petition – signed by hundreds of parents and family members of children enrolled at one of Ideal’s five child care sites across Toronto – called on management to invest in workers with a fair wage and improved working conditions, including increased paid programming time, adequate sick days, and WSIB coverage.