Canwest Global Communications has requested that union representatives at its newspapers begin negotiations on possible concessions as the company restructures in an attempt to lighten the burden of 3.9 billion in debt, according to the unions and reported by The Canadian Press on Saturday.

The CWA/SCA union, representative for workers at five of Canwest major titles, said it received a letter on Friday from Canwest's president and CEO of newspaper operations, Dennis Skulsky, requesting the pay cuts. The union believes that similar notifications have been given to union leaders at other Canwest papers.

Skulsky labeled the cuts as the potential, "difference between a creditor protection process or not."

In praising the progress of financial discussions with the company's stakeholders and employees Skulsky also drew attention to the lack of union presence at these conversations.

"We haven't been able to engage our union leadership in a dialogue that is constructive for both Canwest and its employees," he said.

CWA/SCA director Arnold Amber disagreed with the claims of union dissidence.

"We are urging Canwest to provide complete financial information and if it does, we would be open to further discussions," he said in a statement.

"We have met several times this year, and we've underlined the need to have access to real financial data in order to have meaningful talks."

"The focus of any talks now should be how to ensure that the newspapers we work for succeed in their cities. We know just from the numbers that have been made public that five per cent wage concessions are not going to go far in solving Canwest's overall debt, so we need to take a broader view about the problem at hand."

Canwest is toiling to reorganize a $3.9 billion debt load, a product of its 2000 purchase of the Southham newspaper chain and other assets for $3.2 billion from Conrad Black's Hollinger group. The media conglomerate has already received a number of repayment extensions from bondholders.

Any form of debt restructuring appears to also involve boardroom reorganization.

Canwest owns a number of major dailies across Canada including the National Post in Toronto, as well as the Global TV network with broadcasting interests in Europe, Australia and New Zealand.