We’re happy to announce that the Canadian Media Guild’s bargaining committee has reached a tentative 3-year agreement with ZoomerMedia. Once ratified, our renewed collective agreement would be effective from September 1, 2017 to August 31, 2020.
Highlights of the deal include:
-A general 1.8% salary increase that will be back-dated to September 1, 2017; a second 1.8% increase effective September 1, 2018; and another 1.8% increase on September 1, 2019.
-Proper meal breaks and appropriate coverage of employees’ job duties when they are on meal breaks
-Improved compassionate care leave for family members, including a broader definition of who is a family member, and longer, unpaid, job-protected compassionate care leave that’s consistent with the Canada Labour Code. Health, disability and employer RRSP benefits will also continue during the time the employee is on compassionate care leave
-Our union also negotiated some improvements in maternity and parental leave benefits. The employer will pay 100% of employee earnings during the one-week EI waiting period, and the employer top-up to EI benefits will now be payable for 14 weeks.
-Transparent parameters for internships, including clear duration and educational goals, mentoring and supervision provisions, information sharing with the union, and agreement that interns not be used to replace existing staff or to avoid filling a vacancy
-Longer lay-off notice period, and some ability to borrow vacation time.
-These are just a few of the improvements our bargaining committee negotiated. We are working to book a venue for a membership meeting to discuss the full agreement and to vote on the deal. We will announce meeting details shortly.
In the meantime, please read the tentative agreement, speak to any member of the committee about the agreement, and plan to bring questions to our membership meeting.
CMG bargaining committee at ZoomerMedia:
Darren Gonsalves, Branch President
Mike Brown, Branch Vice President
Tara Schaub, Branch Secretary
Matt Douglas, CMG Staff Rep