TORONTO – With less than two weeks left before the Canadian Media Guild members working at the CBC would be in a legal strike position, the union today reported “modest progress”.
However, it cautioned that much still had to be worked out.
“Agreement has been reached on a small number of articles covering hospital, medical and dental benefits, callback, leave with/without pay, return to work after an illness and part-time employees,” says the CMG’s press release today.
“We have also had some discussions on the core issue of employment status. The Guild has restated its willingness to address legitimate operational needs but will not agree to the creation of a non-permanent workforce at the CBC. We have offered to allow the hiring of non-permanent employees where the Corporation’s needs can’t be met by permanent staff. We also tabled language that would allow for significant flexibility in the way employees are scheduled, while at the same time eliminating the ability to average overtime over a four-week period,” it continued.
“Unfortunately, the Corporation continues to treat the bargaining process as an exercise in takeaways. On one hand, it agrees to eliminate the regressive practice of averaging overtime over four weeks. On the other hand, it proposes to get rid of key overtime provisions for working more than 12 hours in a day. It also seeks to pay overtime on a daily basis only after eight hours have been worked. That would be a significant monetary loss for more than 1,500 members in Unit 2.”
CMG also says it has made “a major move on the issue of contracting out, recognizing the need to compromise in order to reach a fair collective agreement.”
The Guild had wanted a complete ban on the practice, but its new proposal would allow contracting out with some restrictions, it says.
For example, contracting out couldn’t be based on whether work could be done more cheaply by someone else. The Guild’s proposal would see the CBC have to jump a number of hurdles before any contracting out could happen, with the union wishing to keep everything in-house.
“Our proposal would ensure that the union had all the information an outside organization had about the plan, allowing the union to offer alternatives in order to keep the work in house. We also seek enhanced rights for affected employees to get other work in the CBC or with the new contractor,” outlines the CMG release.
We also tabled language on pay and employment equity to allow the union to be a meaningful partner in ensuring that equity goals and legislation are respected.
The committees broke for the holiday weekend and will negotiate continuously until the August 14th deadline.
