Five CBC employees have accepted settlements with the Corporation after their grievances were sent to arbitration. The settlements came as a result of negotiation between the Guild and the Corporation aimed at finding creative resolutions on behalf of our members.
? A contract employee has been reinstated with back-pay after the Guild argued she was wrongfully terminated.
? A long-time contract employee will get extra compensation to help the transition to work outside the CBC after her contract was terminated. She had been kept on contract, even though she was not replacing an absent employee.
? A laid-off employee will also get extra compensation to help the transition to work outside the CBC.
? An employee with a disability is getting proper compensation after being denied the accommodation she was entitled to under our collective agreement and the Human Rights Act.
? The salary of an employee is being adjusted to properly reflect her work and she will receive back-pay for the time that the Corporation was paying her incorrectly.
Grievances over major job cuts are in process
The Guild is putting a series of grievances related to job cuts made at the CBC this year in front of mediators and arbitrators.
A mediator will hear the case of Radio 3, the award-winning web magazine and radio show produced in Vancouver, on July 21 and 22. The CBC announced changes to Radio 3 in February and asked existing staff to reapply for their jobs. In May, four employees were told their jobs were redundant. The Guild is arguing that CBC did not follow the collective agreement when it reorganized Radio 3 and cut jobs.
Arbitration has begun on issues related to the contracting out of work done by 34 CBC publicists across the country. The affected publicists left their jobs in late June and the private company, the Liberal Party-connected PR firm Media Profile, has taken over the work. The CBC did not consult with the Guild when planning this major reorganization of our work. The arbitration hearing continues in September.
Also in September, an arbitrator will hear the case against the CBC for failing to honour the collective agreement when it laid off employees with Newsworld International. Some 41 employees were affected by the cancellation of the service. The Guild is also grieving the Corporation’s refusal to provide affected employees proper access to vancancies and displacement rights.
As well, a grievance involving TV show ZeD is being referred to arbitration. The Guild is arguing employees were improperly hired on short-term contracts instead of in permanent positions. Seven employees on contract were given termination notices in June. The CBC has announced that the program is being restructured.
Individual grievances also underway
A mediator will soon hear the grievance filed on behalf of high-profile sports personality Chris Cuthbert. Cuthbert, who worked as a contract employee with the CBC for 22 years, was told his services were no longer needed in February. The Guild believes that Cuthbert should have the rights of a permanent employee.
The Guild has also asked that an arbitrator be appointed to hear the case involving the lay-off of a well-known and well-respected music producer in Alberta. The Corporation is refusing reassign the talented producer according to his rights under the collective agreement.
The case of a publicist who received a redundancy notice but is being denied full displacement rights is also headed for arbitration.
Guild opposes moving union work into management
The Guild is fighting the CBC’s elimination of resource co-ordinator positions at the Toronto Production Centre and the moving of their work into management jobs. The move resulted in layoffs of employees covered by the Guild collective agreement. An arbitration on the case will be heard in mid September.