A major arbitration began earlier this week in Toronto before Innis Christie about the way that CBC management engages hundreds of employees as temporaries.

The CMG has been doing research on the issue for more than a year. The union has devoted a significant amount of resources to map out the ongoing work in every CBC workplace across the country and to identify areas where it appears CBC management has hired employees as temporaries when it should have given them permanent jobs.

“The CMG has allocated an unprecedented amount of money for research and other resources to resolve this grievance,” says CBC branch president Marc-Philippe Laurin. “Beyond helping individual employees fix their job status problems, we realized it was necessary to get to the root of the culture of abuse of temporary employees at CBC.”

Under the collective agreement, the CBC can engage temporaries to replace absent employees, or in emergencies or special circumstances or events. The Guild’s research indicates that CBC’s use of temporary employment goes well beyond what is permitted under the agreement.

Unfortunately, a series of joint meetings over four months in which the CMG began sharing its research with CBC management did not produce a timely path to resolving the dispute.

“We expect to get some answers from CBC management on as many as 71 temporary positions before February 20, the next time both sides meet with Mr. Christie,” says CMG staff representative Bruce May. “However, that is only a fraction of the total number of positions in dispute.”

After February 21, four more?days are booked with the arbitrator?and we expect more?days to be added.

For more information, contact the Guild (info@cmg.ca) at 416-591-5333 or 1-800-465-4149.

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Le 8 f?vrier 2008