CBC prez gives surprising endorsement of union
The Guild had an unlikely defender at a recent Canadian Heritage committee meeting in Ottawa in the form of CBC president Robert Rabinovitch. Responding to a cranky question from Liberal MP Mark Eyking (Cape Breton) about whether he finds that unions at CBC are “stifling” the flexibility to hire new talent, Rabinovitch said:

“I think it is grossly unfair to say that the problems we have in terms of bringing in new talent and new people and new programming people is due to the union structure and the union contract. The problems we have are due to a company which has been shrinking for the last twenty years in terms of number of employees, amount of money it has, and it’s only right and fair that union contracts be written to protect existing employees.”

So there. Ball’s in your court, Mr. Eyking.

Guild members at AAC still fighting for their raise
Alliance Atlantis Communications is continuing to deny CMG members the annual salary increase that was offered to all other AAC employees in 2006… leaving a clear impression that the company wants to punish employees who chose to join the union last year.

Management defended the move by saying they didn’t want to prejudice the bargaining process, which is now under way to reach a first collective agreement. The Guild explained at the time that we had no problem with AAC management “imposing” a raise on employees for 2006, as had been the practice for a number of years – particularly since bargaining had not yet begun toward a first collective agreement. Nonetheless, AAC management stuck to its guns, so the Guild filed an unfair labour practice complaint at the Canadian Labour Relations Board.

The board has scheduled a hearing for October 25-27.

Hellooooo … anyone home?
The Guild has heard unconfirmed reports that vice-president of HR Ga