company, Brace Publishing Limited. The company also launched the glossy Herald Magazine in February 2012. It launched the Cape Breton Star, a weekly newspaper, in Cape Breton in May 2014. Circulation has been in decline. In 2012 the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported circulation of 108,389 weekdays, 112,306 Saturdays and 97,190 Sundays In April 2012 the Sunday edition was discontinued as a cost-cutting measure and the Saturday paper was renamed Weekend. Still, in 2013, Sarah Dennis stated that the newspaper was profitable and that readership was at an all-time high. In September 2014, weekday circulation was estimated at 70,000, with the weekend edition selling 72,000. On-line subscriptions totaled 1,862. In February 2015, the Herald locked out its 13 unionized printing press workers, causing the first work stoppage in the company's history. The lockout ended about a month later, after the union agreed to major concessions. 2016–17 labour dispute Lockout and bargaining On January 23, 2016, 61 members of the Halifax Typographical Union's newsroom and news bureau staff were locked out of the Herald by Dennis and Lever, who went on to hire "scab" reporters as replacements. The Chronicle Herald refused any concessions offered by the union, and later on the striking staff launched a competing online newspaper called Local Xpress. By September 2016, the number of striking workers was down to 56 as some had sought new employment for financial reasons. The union criticized the Herald for spending more than $400,000 on security (as at September 2016) while demanding cuts in the newsroom, and stated that the real intention of management was to bust the union. The typographical union also accused Sarah Dennis of hiring private investigators to tail and intimidate picketers. In September 2016 the Herald announced that it was shutting down the Cape Breton Star due to "a prevailing headwind of union sympathy in industrial Cape Breton". The union agreed to wage cuts and increased working hours equating to an hourly pay decrease of 17 per cent, layoffs of a third of unionized staff, a cap on severance pay, reductions in vacation time and mileage allowance, a 25 per cent lower starting wage, and elimination of the defined benefit pension plan founded by Graham Dennis. However, the dispute dragged on with no agreement being reached between the two parties. The newspaper was accused of making unreasonable demands with the aim of breaking the union, and hired lawyers advertising