Award winners one day, gone the next
A sobering insight into the precarious future the CBC wants for its employees is on display in Vancouver. A complaint on behalf of employees at Radio 3 dominated discussion at the March meeting of the Unit 1 national grievance committee. It was filed after Radio Vice-President Jane Chalmers traveled to Vancouver to tell award-winning Radio 3 employees that the unit was being restructured and that everyone was to lose their jobs ? but that they were welcome to apply for new positions in the restructured organization. Many of these jobs are basically the same as the positions they already occupy.
The CBC has already made it clear at the negotiating table that it wants to hire all new employees on contract to work on programmes that could be cancelled at any time, giving them no rights to reassignment.
The Guild worked hard to find a compromise in the Radio 3 case, urging the Corporation to work with the union to reassign existing employees within the new structure. The CBC made it clear it isn’t interested in doing that. The Guild has referred this to arbitration.
Layoff grievance settled at arbitration
After months of discussion and debate, at times heated, the Guild and the CBC settled one of the many grievances filed during the past year or so dealing with layoffs. This one involves a long-time employee at the CBC in Toronto. The settlement was reached during the first day of an arbitration hearing last week. A number of other grievances dealing with layoffs were referred to arbitration and the Guild has instructed our lawyers to push the corporation to get arbitrators appointed to hear the grievances.
Management takeover
They are an endangered species across the country: Executive Producers and Bureau Chiefs. These unionized jobs are being eliminated in favour of new management positions called “managing editors.” Anyone who is moved into management loses their rights and protection under the Guild collective agreement. It is also a grab by management for control over what goes into newscasts. The Corporation already tried to take Executive Producers out of the Guild years ago, but lost that fight before the Canada Industrial Relations Board. Now it’s trying again. The next battle will be before an arbitrator.
Free work fight
The Guild is demanding that the CBC produce a list of all employees designated as Self Assigned, along with documentation of the workload reviews required under the Collective Agreement. There’s evidence that many people are incorrectly classified as Self Assigned and don’t have the workload agreements that would compensate them for their overtime. Not surprisingly, the CBC doesn’t see this as a problem, so this issue is also destined for arbitration.
Tomorrow’s journalists, today
They are the future of CBC News Radio and Television journalism: trainee journalists, seeking their big break in public broadcasting. The Guild and the CBC have agreed on a policy for interns, to give young journalists the opportunity to learn their craft under the mentorship of experienced CBC employees. Interns may not be used by the CBC to avoid hiring temporary employees as backfill and must be paid appropriately for their work if they perform the duties of a CBC employee. Details of the new policy will be available soon on CBC and CMG websites.
This has been an update from the CBC Unit 1 national grievance committee for March, 2005.</i)