Media workers have an interest in two recent reports documenting the rise of temporary, low paying, precarious work, and proposing measure to deal with it. Vulnerable Workers and Precarious Work, released this week by the Law Commission of Ontario (LCO), exposes how quickly and significantly work has changed in Ontario, leaving all workers less secure and more vulnerable to low-paying, temporary jobs. This is especially true of women, racialized groups and immigrants. We see the effects of this trend on how difficult it is for young media workers to get stable, well paying work. The report calls for new laws and policies.
A February study, It’s More than Poverty, arrived at similar conclusions, finding that nearly half of Toronto and Hamilton area workers are in unstable jobs.
Both reports show that a lack of stability, benefits, and control over working conditions has serious effects on the workers, their families and communities.
Precarious work in the media sector
Canadian media workers are struggling with the fallout of mergers, reduced funding for public media and technological change, all of which have been accompanied by job cuts and more precarity.
In addition to the negotiations we have with employers on issues such as job security, benefits, workloads and training, here are some other things CMG is doing to deal with these challenges:
– Expanding our freelance branch to help improve conditions for the growing number of freelance media workers in and outside of our workplaces. We are organizing with freelancers and various groups across the country to oppose an ongoing attempt to weaken the rights of writers and photographer from major magazine publisher Transcontinental Media
– In October, we co-sponsored a conference about precarious and unpaid internships – Will Work For Exposure: Cultural Work in Precarious Times – bringing together cultural workers, students, researchers, lawyers and unions to share information and strategies to address the growing problem of precarious work in this otherwise booming sector.
– And just last month, the CMG launched the MediaTech Commons, a free online resource that helps Canadians working in digital media to share information about what’s happening in their industry, and collectively work toward the improvements that they need.
Please visit cmg.ca to find out more or call us at 416-591-5333or 1-800-465-4149, send us an email at info@cmg.ca