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Child labour at The Gazette? Many anglo Montrealers are familiar with the experience. A teenage boy on a street corner offers you a free copy of the day's edition of The Gazette; you happily accept; then the kid badgers you on the spot to purchase a subscription before you've even read the front page. In some cases, when you refuse, the kid may even request that you give the free paper back. >> But if you thought you had simply run into a particularly aggressive paperboy, there's actually a calculated reason for his behaviour: The Gazette pays the teens by commission--so if they don't sell any subscriptions, they don't get paid. >> Montrealer Jane Kingsland told the Mirror that her 17-year-old son signed up to do the promotion, then worked a five-hour day canvassing an apartment building only to sell a single subscription--a wage of $1 per hour. "This is a bad way to introduce kids to the work force, it seems to me," Kingsland says of the commission scheme. "My son didn't even bother to go get his $5." She notes that, according to her son, some of the kids hawking subscriptions were as young as 12 or 13. >> Gazette promotions director Marie McKenzie defended the Montreal daily's pay practices. "The kids know they're being paid by commission at the very start," she said. McKenzie explained that The Gazette actually hires a "junior crew" of consumer marketers who, in turn, hire the teenagers who hit the streets. "We pay the crew managers by commission, so obviously they are going to pay their employees the same way," she said. McKenzie could not confirm the ages of the kids. --Philip Preville
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