Several hundred locked-out employees of CBC will be on Parliament Hill to greet returning MPs on Monday as the lockout enters its seventh week. They will be asking parliamentarians to take action to bring a swift and fair conclusion to the crisis that has crippled public broadcasting in Canada.

“Senior managers at CBC took a big gamble when they locked out 5,500 employees in order to extract deep concessions,” says Lise Lareau, president of the Canadian Media Guild. “The gamble hasn’t worked and it’s time to make management recognize that and negotiate a fair deal.”

The Canadian Media Guild is urging parliamentarians to call CBC president Robert Rabinovitch before the Heritage Committee as soon as possible to explain his actions. The union is also asking Ottawa to hold on to CBC’s parliamentary appropriation and earmark the money for expansion of local and regional services after the lockout ends.

“While CBC management continues to receive Canadians’ money, it has no financial incentive to end the lockout,” Lareau says. “That is a flawed system. Treasury Board should stop payment on the cheques until the lockout is over.”

MPs will be asked to take a minute to chat with locked-out employees and hear about the issues first hand before they enter the House.

For more information, get in touch with the Guild (guild@interlog.com) at 416-591-5333 or 1-800-465-4149.