QUEBEC CITY — Sun Media Corp. locked out 140 editorial and office staff at Le Journal de Quebec newspaper on Sunday.

The lockout was followed by an evening vote where about 100 press workers elected to strike immediately in support of their colleagues.

The company said the lockout of editorial and office staff at the Quebec City newspaper took effect amid a negotiating impasse over working conditions.

Despite the labour struggle, Sun Media's parent company, Quebecor Inc., said the paper will be published Monday.

Quebecor spokesman Luc Lavoie said the paper will continue publishing during the lockout.

Lavoie said the company is asking journalists to adapt to the changing multimedia world by providing content for the Internet in different formats.

"The industry is in complete mutation right now,'' Lavoie said in an interview.

"Circulation is down everywhere in North America. The industry is undergoing profound change, so we must adjust working conditions so we can be confident newspapers, businesses like ours will be sustainable into the future.''

The company wants to shift to a five-day workweek from the current four days and to reduce the newspaper's workforce by centralizing some functions like classified ads.

Denis Bolduc, president of the editorial employees union and a spokesman for the other locked out bargaining units, said the labour dispute is "a completely manufactured conflict.''

He said employees are ready to make concessions but the company has planned for months to lock out workers.

"It's all the more brutal when you consider unionized workers at Le Journal de Quebec were not threatening a strike and not a single day of work has been lost (to labour conflict) since the paper opened in 1967,'' Bolduc said.

Lavoie said the newspaper's reporters are the best paid in the industry, with journalists averaging $86,000 per year and section editors more than $100,000.