With reports circulating recently of low morale in the news department, I had a chance to speak with Carmel Smyth, the president of the Canadian Media Guild’s Toronto branch. I asked her about the union’s approach.

PM: I want to start with morale in the news department. There’s always a certain amount of stress in news, but is it different this time?

Carmel Smyth: If you were to ask me what the big issues are from the people I speak with, they’re workload, news renewal, and the perpetual threat of layoffs.

What happened in news renewal is that so many peoples’ job situations changed all at the same time. People were always moving around in the news department, but this time there’s more people affected than before, all at the same time, and as a result there’s more unhappiness.

It is true that news is under considerable stress. They’ve probably had more changes this years than they’ve had in the last ten.

At the same time the CBC has the best relationship with management that we’ve had in years. Years ago management would manage, and that’s it. Now we’ve agreed to review the complaints that come out of the fourth floor, and they’ve said ‘okay let’s try and work on things.’

They’re reviewing now, how the hub operates… the renewal process is evolving as we speak, people are still being moving around, things are still changing.

There are lots of problems yes. but on the good side there are attempts being made that wouldn’t have happened a few years ago… that’s partly as a result of Hubert [Lacroix].

Grievances are down in the building because there’s a lot of pressure to try and solve them. In the last two years they’ve also made dozens of temporary staff permanent. So there’s lots of examples of how we can work together.

PM: To go back to the News department, and the morale there, is it time for the union to take a harder line?
Carmel Smyth: It’s something we’ve discussed. We’ve taken a harder line in the past. But during this period we’ve decided that we should try and work together.

Maybe it won’t work out down the line, but I think in the short term we’ve made some gains that we wouldn’t have made otherwise.

And I don’t think there’s much appetite for a strike.

Positive things are happening, yes, I know there’s unrest, particularly on the fourth floor. But at the same time, the changes haven’t even been a year, it’s still in a state of flux. We’re a long way from were a more serious labour actions is needed.

PM: So you’re going to give the process more time?
Carmel Smyth: Yes. I think there’s proof that they’re trying. The CBC doesn’t really have to keep meeting with us to try and work on this things. But they are.

We’ll see how far this goes. It’s not like they’re making empty promises.

They’re meeting with us and trying to resolve these things. Now I know things seem slow, but from a union perspective, it’s much, much quicker than they’ve been in the past.

And the other thing is that the union can’t stop decisions about programming. We can work with them to lessen the impact, but they can make the decision about merging departments and units, it’s their prerogative.

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	Labour/CBC Unions, Programming	Posted at 12:00 pm (18 May 2010)

Radio-Canada employees, who have been without a contract since March 29, have ratified a new deal.

The contract affects Radio-Canada employees in Quebec and Moncton and sees a 1.5 per cent pay increase for the three-year term and some concession for contract and temporary employees.

The Canadian Press has more on the contract here.

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	Labour/CBC Unions	Posted at 12:22 pm (18 Oct 2009)

Some details are starting to emerge about the cost-cutting measures announced yesterday.

• The Current will have their budget cut by 10 per cent;
• In Windsor, the French radio morning show and Saturday show will be cancelled, to be replaced by regional inserts into  Toronto programming;
• Overnight French network music programming currently produced out of Windsor, Edmonton and Vancouver will be eliminated;
• French Regional radio noon shows will be replaced by a new national show – it’s not yet known where this program will originate;
• On the French Services TV side, the regional noon news program out of Ottawa will be cancelled;
• The French supper-hour regional Téléjournal program will be reduced from 60 minutes to 30 for the summer season The program Zeste will be put on hiatus.

I should say none of this has been verified, and it’s coming from various sources. I’m sure there will be more details shortly.

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	Labour/CBC Unions	Posted at 12:33 pm (26 Mar 2009)

The new collective agreement was ratified with a vote of 93 per cent in favour.

I can’t tell you how delighted I am with this news. Not only because we don’t have to hit the pavement again, but because it’s the culmination of a new relationship between the union and management that has been long overdue at this corporation.

What are your thoughts?

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	Labour/CBC Unions	Posted at 11:16 am (30 Jan 2009)

Today is the last day to vote on the new collective agreement. You can vote until 8 PM eastern time. If you don’t know the details of the agreement, go here for a quick summary, if you want to read the full agreement, go here to download it.

If you want a summary of the agreement in one sentence, here it is: While pink slips are flying across the media industry, this deal sees a 1.5 per cent salary increase for CBC employees and increases some benefits.

To vote on the agreement go to www.cmg.ca and follow the links. You’ll need your nine-digit CMG number, which is the number on your union membership card, not the number on your employee access card. If you don’t know your number, email vote@cmg.ca and they’ll send it to you.

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	Labour/CBC Unions	Posted at 10:24 am (29 Jan 2009)

Lise Lareau, President of the Canadian Media Guild, has launched a new blog “from the front lines of Canada’s media.”

The blog aims to “discuss what the media is not covering about itself and to share comments and ideas.”

Her first post is on the economic crisis currently hammering the media industry in both Canada and the United States. “What’s not being told is that a perfect storm is battering virtually every North American media company,” Lareau writes.

You can read her entire post here.

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	Labour/CBC Unions	Posted at 4:12 pm (19 Jan 2009)

On Thursday the CMG released more details of the new collective agreement. “In short it has been agreed this deal is merely the starting point… Improving the ongoing relationship between the parties is the key element in this deal,” the Guild email said.

One of the major points of the deal is a 1.5 per cent salary increase effective January 1, 2009 – which means if you make $50,000 a year at you’ll be looking at a $750 dollar raise on January 1st, 2009. The 1.5 per cent rate is set by the federal Treasury Board and affects all public service unions.

“The proposed salary increases are a reflection of the current financial crisis and the limits in funding for wage increases for the public service set by Treasury Board. Other public service Unions are seeing rollbacks, we fortunately are not,” Marc-Philippe Laurin, the CMG branch president, who helped negotiate the deal said this week. “If the [Treasury Board] rate goes up in year three, four and five, we get the difference,” he added.

The deal is contingent a late January ratification vote by CMG members.

Other highlights of the deal include:

• An increase of the co-parenting provisions to 80% from 75%;
• Three weeks severance for every year of service compared to two weeks in the last collective agreement;
• Allows employees to buy additional vacation time;
• Increased access and choice for training;
• A review of compensation for IT and maintenance staff, and a review of sales targets and commissions for sales staff;
• An acknowledgement that the bureaucratic and painful PMSD process doesn’t really work.

Overall the deal reflects CBC President Hubert Lacroix’s direction. One of the major elements of the deal – improving the relationship between employees and management – is one of Lacroix’s major objectives. “This is the first time in my CBC career that bargaining has involved real dialogue from beginning to end,” Laurin said.

In some ways it’s amazing that the we’ve gone from being locked-out to a reaching new collective agreement based on trust and improved relationships in the span of four years. “Many things changed in this round of bargaining, but mainly the perception each had of the other as the enemy,” Laurin said.

The deal is also considered a living document – it’s more of guide than the final word. And it’s not set in stone. Some of the provisions can be changed, with mutual agreement, during the course of the agreement.

The full details of the deal are available here.

So what do you think of the deal? Is it good, bad, does it depend too much good relationships, or this a better way forward than picket signs and walking shoes?

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	Labour/CBC Unions	Posted at 3:03 pm (19 Dec 2008)

Despite having little additional information on the tentative agreement, a vote has been set. The ratification vote will occur at the end of January. The vote happen after membership meetings in most CBC locations between January 12th and 25th.

Expect highlights of the deal to be sent out on Thursday. The full text will be available in January. The Guild says “The full memorandum of agreement is currently being collated and translated.”

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	Labour/CBC Unions	Posted at 3:35 pm (16 Dec 2008)

The CBC and the Canadian Media Guild have reached a tentative agreement on a new five-year deal after seven weeks of negotiations. The deal was signed this afternoon. It is subject to a ratification vote by guild members.

If ratified, the deal would come into effect on January 1st, 2009 and last until 2014.

The details are a bit thin at this point, but here are the highlights:

• Wage increases of 1.5 per cent each year;
• Improvements in maternity/paternity benefits;
• Improved benefits for bereavement leave and layoffs.
  

There are obviously way more details on the deal, and I’ll post them as I get them.

What do you think so far?

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	Labour/CBC Unions	Posted at 6:22 pm (13 Dec 2008)

Last Friday, CBC/Radio-Canada and CMG completed a second full week of meetings designed to improve the relationship between the parties.

The meetings, which included facilitator Warren Edmondson, were initiated by executives of the CMG and the CBC/Radio-Canada and were the product of several joint discussions held between February and May.

During these two full weeks, the parties tackled number of hot topics including Temporary Employment and Contract Employment. Several grievances have been resolved and they’ll set a precedent to future temporary employment situations. CBC says more details are coming in a few weeks.

More meeting dates are scheduled in the Fall.

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	Labour/CBC Unions	Posted at 8:30 pm (23 Jul 2008)

Hubert Lacroix spoke yesterday at the Canadian Media Guild‘s biannual convention. It marked the first time that a CBC/Radio-Canada President and CEO spoke at a CMG convention.

Lacroix said poor communication between the senior executives and guild representatives underscored an urgent need to rebuild a proper relationship. Lacroix’s said his mission since he joined the CBC 18 months ago has been to build a greater level of respect and transparency at every level of the organization.

Lacroix called for a “paradigm shift” (yes, he actually said “paradigm shift”) in thinking to incorporate more pride and positivity. He added that he knew the job was hard because the same executives are in the same place as they were during the 2005 lockout. He also highlighted that each member of his senior management team had been fully briefed on the importance of the CBC/CMG relationship, and “failure is not an option” to them.

Lacroix also spoke of the changing media environment, particularly of the BBC’s move to up their budget for their web services from $200 million to $800 million US annually. He used this as a pointed example; “[Mark Thompson, director-general of the BBC] is going to take almost one-half our total annual budget for CBC/Radio-Canada and invest it in Web services and Web-related initiatives,” Lacroix told delegates, pointing to the challenge of working in an industry that is constantly requiring us to rethink our existing strategies. “How can we keep being relevant in this environment if we can’t talk? If our own labour and management team can’t change this, no one can.”

Lacroix has also started up a key initiative, “Challenge Us!”, which brings together 65 CBC employees from all levels and all areas of the country, in order to examine the employee/employer relationship and change it to a healthy and productive one. He recognized the inputs from key members of the Canadian Media Guild, and finished by once again reiterating that failure was not an option, and that the relationship must improve from both sides.

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	Executives, Human Resources, Labour/CBC Unions	Posted at 12:48 pm (26 May 2008)

This morning, I invited Marc Philippe Laurin, president of the CMG’s CBC branch, and George C.B. Smith, Senior Vice-President of CBC Human Resources, to sit down for separate interviews to discuss their thoughts on the upcoming negotiations for the next Collective Agreement.

I thought it would be interesting to know what the key issues are this time around, how the last C.A. has fared, what issues are still outstanding, and so on.

Update:

• CMG replies saying it’s too early to know what the issues are. They’ll have a better sense of it after their committee meets in June.
• CBC communications says George Smith isn’t ready to discuss it yet, but will in June.

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	Labour/CBC Unions	Posted at 11:41 am (23 Apr 2008)

APRIL 23 UPDATE: The CBC has responded to this. See below.

The Canadian Media Guild, which represents about 5,500 workers at the CBC, along with its French union counterpart, say a Quebec judge overstepped her bounds in giving the CBC permission to not act on a resolution from the Consultative Committee on Staff Benefits dealing with a pension surplus.

From the Canadian Media Guild:

In 2000, the CBC Pension Plan reported a surplus of more than $600 million. While some of it, $134 million, was refunded, employees and pensioners passed a motion at the meeting of the Consultative Committee on Staff Benefits (CCSB) directing the CBC to distribute a further $202 million to employees and pensioners. The Corporation refused and the unions filed grievances, claiming that management was obliged to follow the direction of the CCSB in circumstances where there was no additional cost to the Corporation. After nearly a year of hearings, arbitrator Denis Nadeau ruled in the unions’ favour.

CBC applied for judicial review of the decision. More than a year after the completion of the court proceeding, Quebec Superior Court judge Jeannine M. Rousseau overturned the arbitrator’s decision.

In a statement from the CMG, the union says the judge acted outside of her authority. “Labour arbitrators in Canada have broad authority to determine the issues before them,” it said, “And under Canadian law courts must give them a high degree of deference.”

The unions are asking to Quebec Court of Appeal to reinstate arbitrator Nadeau’s decision.

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UPDATE APRIL 23, 2008 – CBC’S RESPONSE:

A few days ago, the Superior Court of Quebec rendered a decision in favour of CBC/Radio-Canada on a matter relating to pension plan surplus management.

In June 2006, a labour arbitrator ruled against CBC/Radio-Canada, finding that it had violated the collective agreement by not following the recommendations of the Consultative Committee on Staff Benefits (CCSB) regarding the distribution of a pension plan surplus in 1999.

CBC/Radio-Canada claimed that given the CCSB’s status as a consultative body, its recommendations regarding distribution of the surplus required the approval of the Board of Directors prior to implementation, which it did not have at the time.

In response to the arbitrator’s ruling, CBC/Radio-Canada filed for judicial review before the Superior Court of Quebec. In her decision, Madame Justice Rousseau upheld CBC/Radio-Canada’s position on the matter, confirming that the Board of Directors must indeed approve the recommendations of the CCSB before they can be acted upon.

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	Labour/CBC Unions	Posted at 12:27 pm (22 Apr 2008)

The Canadian Media Guild will provide a subsidy to three members to attend the annual conference of the Canadian Association of Journalists, which is taking place May 23 to 25 in Edmonton.

Selected people will be reimbursed for 75% of their travel costs to attend the convention. Winners who live in Edmonton will be reimbursed for 75% of their registration fees. The deadline for submitting your entry is April 17. The winners will be asked to write a brief report for the Guild’s national executive. Members who have received a similar subsidy from the Guild in the past two years are not eligible.

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	Labour/CBC Unions	Posted at 10:37 am (17 Apr 2008)

Timothy Neesam and Xavier Bédard have been acclaimed as directors of the Guild’s CBC branch executive. Timothy will sit as director of new media and Xavier as director of Radio-Canada East. No one was nominated for the position of director of temporary employees. The branch executive will examine how to fill that role at its meeting in mid-April.

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	Asides, Labour/CBC Unions	Posted at 2:27 pm (09 Apr 2008)