After 2 months of stalling from management at the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, the Canadian Media Guild is asking an arbitrator to settle salary re-negotiations with the network.
When news and current affairs staff reached a collective agreement with APTN in April 2003, it was agreed an increase to the salary scales would be negotiated before entering the 3rd year of the contract.
This week, the CMG’s bargaining committee met with APTN for the second session of negotiations. After several hours of talks, an agreement couldn’t be reached.
Under the collective agreement, the negotiations will now move on to a Final Offer Selection Process. Each party will present its final offer to an arbitrator, who will pick one of them.
The CMG’s final offer is a 3.5 percent increase to all steps of the salary scales. While it would represent only a 0.12 percent increase to APTN’s over-all expenses, management rejected the offer, calling it “financially imprudent.”
APTN has yet to submit a final offer.
Both parties have previously agreed a wage decrease would not be negotiated, and any increase would be retroactive to April 25, 2005.
A date has not been set for the arbitration. Your CMG Bargaining Committee will keep you informed when a date has been scheduled.
Please contract any member of the bargaining committee if you have any questions;
Greg Taylor, branch vice-president (editorial), gregtaylor100@hotmail.com
Bruce Spence, ndncarman@hotmail.com
Gerry Whelan, CMG Staff Representative, gerry@cmg.ca