TORONTO – After four full days on the picket lines – and lots of BBC programming hitting the airwaves, there are no new talks planned between the CBC and its locked out Canadian Media Guild union members.
However, says the CMG, the Guild’s chief negotiator, Dan Oldfield, is in daily contact with his counterpart from management, Stephen Satchel.
Satchel is the new lead negotiator for the CBC as the Corp.’s head of industrial relations, Michelle Sparling, removed herself from the table last week in an attempt to see if that would move along the talks.
On Tuesday, federal mediators…
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OTTAWA – The newspaper and radio ads purchased by the CBC to explain the company’s side of the worker lockout has struck a negative chord with the Canadian Labour Congress.
In a press release, CLC president Ken Georgetti said he finds the tactic galling and says he thinks most Canadians feel the same way.
"The last budget gave the CBC new funding to put towards better service. Rather than using that money for better programming, it’s being wasted on advertising at the competition! It’s being used to promote an agenda that insults its workers and fails the CBC audience,…
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TORONTO – Well, that didn’t take long.
As reported yesterday evening by cbc.ca (repeated here on cartt.ca), former head of CBC programming is, in fact, headed to the Canadian Film Centre.
Robert Munroe, chair of the board of the CFC confirmed that this morning. Klymkiw starts his new job in late September.
"We are incredibly excited to have Slawko take the helm of the Canadian Film Centre," said Munroe, in the press release. "The depth of experience and industry knowledge that he brings to the position will be integral to leading the next exciting chapter in the Film…
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TORONTO – High definition television set owners in Toronto and Vancouver can now pick up CTV in HD, over the air.
The company officially announced its digital transmitters on Toronto’s CN Tower and Vancouver’s Mount Seymour are operational. CTV is the first national conventional Canadian broadcaster to transmit HD OTA, says the company. (Ed note: this is a clarification of an earlier version of this story which said CTV was the first Canadian broadcaster to offer high definition over the air – a distinction several readers pointed out – and that www.cartt.ca should have remembered – belongs to Citytv…
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TORONTO – The man ultimately responsible for what you’ve seen on the CBC for almost a decade has decided to call it quits.
CBC announced Wednesday evening that Slawko Klymkiw (right), executive director, network programming, has stepped down after 25 years with the Corp. and nine as head of English television programming.
While speculation will likely run rampant over the reasons for his departure, he insists it wasn’t because of the current lockout, adding the move has been coming for a while. “Nine years is an extraordinarily long time for anyone to be the Program Director of a major…
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TORONTO – Yesterday it was the Steelworkers, today it’s CUPE throwing its support behind the locked-out CBC employees.
CUPE (the Canadian Union of Public Employees) is Canada’s largest union and they, too, have long opposed the increased use of contract employees.
"CBC management’s decision to lock out its workers is an aggressive and desperate action undertaken to force its outsourcing scheme," said Paul Moist, national president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), in a release. "This kind of hostility can only weaken the CBC and result in even worse labour-management relations when the dispute is over."…
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REGINA – The lockout at the CBC has taken the Canada Games off the CBC airwaves, so Regina’s cable co-op Access Communications and APTN are pitching in to show the closing ceremonies this weekend, along with help from CTV and SCN.
"The Council is thrilled by the support Access7 has offered for the closing celebration,” said president and CEO for the Canada Games Council, Sue Hyland of the cable channel. “Throughout the Games they have done an incredible amount of work to broadcast entire games to their viewers across the province, and now, at the eleventh hour, for them…
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TORONTO – United Steelworkers’ national director Ken Neumann said Tuesday that the CBC’s decision to lock out its 5,500 Canadian Media Guild employees is foolish and jeopardizes Canadian cultural sovereignty.
As well, Steelworkers’ Ontario/Atlantic director Wayne Fraser said the CBC’s funding of scab labour should be considered scandalous by the federal government.
"The careers of some of Canada’s most recognizable broadcast personalities are being put on hold and Canadians will soon start to tune out the CBC," said Neumann in the press release. "The CBC is just another run-of-the-mill broadcaster without the creativity of career journalists, producers and broadcasters."…
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TORONTO – Talks between the CBC and its union, the Canadian Media Guild, broke off at around 10:30 Sunday night, with no new negotiations planned.
A message on the CMG hotline from bargaining committee member Barbara Saxberg announced “with considerable regret,” that no deal could be made by the 12:01 a.m. Monday August 15th deadline.
This means no Peter Mansbridge, no CFL football (although the Corp. may try to broadcast the games with fill in camera operators and no announcers or replays), and some kind of national radio feed which has yet to be determined (look for something music-heavy)….
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DEAR MEMBERS AND COLLEAGUES,
So it’s come to this.
CBC’s managers are shutting the doors and locking us out of the places where we have devoted so many hours working, reporting, producing, shooting, hosting and creating CBC programming. It seems unthinkable, unnecessary, wasteful.
More than that, this is an aggressive move by any standard. I would call it un-Canadian for a major national employer, a public broadcaster no less, to be locking the door on 5,500 professionals. In retrospect, it would seem that plans were in place to do this all along. It explains the absolute wall that our bargaining committee…
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