This has been a difficult week for members across the country as the news of CBC’s projected lay-offs has overshadowed our work in bargaining. We continue to learn more about the CBC’s forecasted budget shortfall but the true size and number of potential lay-offs are still unknown. These announcements disrupted the Bargaining Committee, but we were not derailed in our goal of working toward a new proposed Collective Agreement.
At this point we have completed four weeks of negotiations. Some interim agreements have been signed in areas such as Telework, Harassment & Violence, and Dispute Resolution.
But nothing is agreed upon until everything is agreed upon, and a conversation on Compensation is yet to happen. We have three more weeks scheduled to continue work on issues including Temporary workers, and Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility. Bargaining resumes the week of January 15th, when we focus on process modernization and technological impacts on jobs with things like artificial Intelligence and Workday.
We will be holding another bargaining town hall on January 11 @ 21:00 ET to hear your feedback on things like Workday, AI and technological changes.
The CMG CBC Branch Executive Committee will continue keeping members updated on cuts and processes as things move forward in that area. There was a challenge with capacity in the Zoom town hall on Dec. 6 at 18:30 EST, when we had more than 100 members attempt to log on at once; the issue was fixed for the 21:00 EST meeting. The outpouring of interest pushed us to adapt to make sure we are meeting the needs of members, with increased capacity.
The BEC will hold another information town hall to discuss the cuts on Monday, Dec. 11 at 19:00 EST. The CMG commits to keep members informed as the projected cuts roll out across the country.
These are challenging times.
In Solidarity,
CMG Bargaining Team at CBC/Radio-Canada,
Faith Fundal
Kat McMorrow
Saïda Ouchaou
Jagjit Panesar
Pauline Pemik
Jane Robertson
Naomi Robinson
Jonathan Spence
Matt Douglas, Sr. CMG Staff Rep
Marianne Malo Chenard, CMG Staff Rep