Less than half of available CBC jobs are regular full-time positions
Several months ago, I had the opportunity to sit down with CBC president Robert Rabinovitch for an in-depth interview about all sorts of Corporation-related matters. We spoke for more than an hour.
During the interview, I asked him about concerns that the CBC is moving away from hiring full-time employees, and instead hiring people on contract. (CBC management says an increased number of casual, contract, and temporary employees is necessary these days to remain flexible.)
Here’s a portion of that interview:
Maffin: Do you see there being more contract people than, say, five years ago in those divisions?
Rabinovitch: Oh, yeah. There’s no question about that.
Maffin: What percentage? Can you put a number on that?
Rabinovitch: It’s all being worked out in the union contract. I think the number’s about ten percent. So you’re not talking about the bulk, but you are talking about a very significant number.
Now that the dust has settled from the lockout and the collective agreement has had some time to “break in,” I thought it might be interesting to see how many positions currently being offered at CBC are, in fact, full-time.
As of May 24, what’s available are: 20 contract full-time positions, 19 regular full-time positions, and seven temporary positions.
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We are seeing an increase in the number of people at the CBC hired on contract because the latest collective agreement does allow the CBC to employ a number of people on contract that is equivalent to 9.5% of permanent employees.
That said, we are keeping a close eye on whether permanent employees are being laid off and replaced by contract jobs.
What we’re really concerned about right now is the rampant abuse of temporary employees. The CBC is wrongly hiring people on a temporary basis to do ongoing work. The Guild has spent months documenting how work is being done across the country. We’re trying to get this issue in front of an arbitrator as soon as possible to get this practice stopped. In our view, the CBC is only allowed to hire people on a temporary basis to do temporary work …ie to backfill someone or to do a special or short-term project. We know this limitation is being ignored. And this has got to stop. It’s bad for employees, it’s bad for the industry and it’s bad for our programming.
What percentage of the total jobs do the “available” jobs make? Of course, a headline that says that less than half the available jobs are full time has misleading implications belies the leanings of the writer.
Just trying to figure if the figure are lying or the lier is figuring.
It reminds me of the Information Morning show in Halifax this week that focused on the new problem of the growth of non-union construction jobs in the city. Don Connoly asked the reporter how the union was going to combat the positive attitudes of non-union workers and regain a hold on the construction jobs in Halifax. Very unbiased!
It makes a poor sucker who pays for this shite (through taxes to the tune of $1 Billion a year) where he went wrong.
Hmm…I think your argument is a bit specious, here. After all, it’s the very nature of contract jobs to be up more frequently. So it stands to reason that there would be a higher proportion of contract jobs available.
I’d like to know the duration of the typical contract job compared to permanent employees’ tenure. That would clarify the reality behind the number of currently available positions.
Mike, let’s put it this way: if you want a job at the CBC, or if you’re a manager at the CBC and want to hire someone, it will probably be contract.
As Lise points out, the CBC can have the equivalent of 9.5% of their permanent workforce on contract. Currently we are well below that and are trying to maximize our allotted contractization of the workforce.
This is what the 2005 lockout was all about, wasn’t it? And this is the result.
So Mike, you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s all between the people your government has appointed and the people the CMG has elected.
My staff job is over. I have been made redundant, even though the show I work on is coming back. What will happen is that I will charge what the corpse charged the show for me. They are not happy that they can’t make any money off of me any more. I do not believe the numbers are true, the union is unaware of what is actually going on. Gill deacon’s show hired a person that does my job(badly)and none of us were even considered. The union apparently did not know about this. Thanks
I’m no suck up to management, but CBC appears to be making a sincere effort to rebuild its local news operation in Vancouver. The experiment may be short-lived depending on the ratings… but I understand why the corp is posting a lot of contract jobs tied to the Vancouver project. No one really knows how this thing will fly. As much as we may want every job to be a permanent staff job– over the years CBC gave staff jobs to a lot of dead wood and talentless hacks who are often impossible to get rid of… I’m not trying to be catty, but I’ve worked in enough CBC spots to know that we have some staffers who earn $70,000+ salaries as producers — and they don’t produce much content. I think CBC genuinely wants to hire talented people for all these contract openings. If they’re good, I guarantee they’ll stay and eventually land a permanent staff job.
I would have expected a better commitment to stable employment from a crown corporation.
Sounds like lazy/incompetent management.
There’s some validity to those comments from Mike, Darren and CBCworker – the fact that more than half of the current postings aren’t staff doesn’t prove anything.
However, Ouimet is right: there’s a push to hire everyone on contract until management has maxed out its allowable percentage. I know in our area, no one is being offered a staff job. Nobody. All hires are contractual, even for positions that are ongoing and where the coworkers are staff.
It’s already becoming a hiring issue – how are we supposed to attract the best people when the competition is offering staff positions? We’ve lost several star candidates already.
I am responding to “Tripoli”. If you are in fact hired back on contract for a CBC production to do the same work you were previously doing as a permanent employee at the CBC, you should make sure to phone or email us at the main Guild office. It’s clearly not right for the CBC to lay off permanent staff and hire them back on a non-permanent basis to continue doing ongoing work. Unfortunately, we can only do so much to prevent these things from happening up front, but we can be effective in stopping them once they happen….if we know about them.
here in Quebec we have people working 10, 15 and more years, always on contract. It’s shameful.