Representatives from the Canadian Media Guild and the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network met this week for another bargaining session. The parties are negotiating a renewal of the collective agreement for the news and current affairs unit.

Agreements were made on two articles during the session: Union Dues Check-off and Union Committees. On more substantive issues, however, there was little progress.

APTN is proposing to tie progression up the salary scales to annual performance reviews. The proposal would mean an employee would have to, in the sole opinion of management, reach a certain performance grade in order to receive their annual salary increase. APTN says this is needed to ensure employees attain adequate levels of productivity.

The Guild bargaining committee finds the management proposal unacceptable.

Guild proposals to eliminate overtime averaging and decrease the cap on time-in-lieu hours were rejected by APTN, who once again used the productivity argument. APTN insists editorial staff are already incurring too much overtime, and not producing enough news stories in return.

While disappointed with APTN management’s attitude towards its staff, the Guild bargaining committee is optimistic more progress can be made at the next session, which is scheduled for August 16 to 18, 2006, in Winnipeg.

If you have any questions, or want further information, please contact your Guild bargaining committee. They are:

Dan Zeidler, CMG Staff Representative
Greg Taylor
Maureen Googoo
Cheryl McKenzie
Dan Oldfield, Lead Negotiator