*WEDDING.BLOG.LINK*

News reports this morning say that the CBC has locked its union out, after last minute negotiations failed to produce anything over the weekend.

So, what does JD think of all this? (That's why you came here isn't it?) First let's outline what's going on:
Well, for starters the union members voted 87.something percent in favour of giving the union negotiators a strike mandate, so the union was ready to strike if it was decided that it was needed. After 15 months without a contract, something definitely was needed.
Also, while the CBC wants to have the ability to make new hires in terms of contracts and 'temporary full-time' and 'full-time casual' -type hires, the union claims that ~30% of it existing staff is under such employment terms and provides the corporation with all the staffing flexibility it should need.
It should also be noted that while many services will be scaled back, the CBC will still be running all of it's various services, but will be scaling them back, or providing 'acquired content' ('Pimp-My-Ride-on-MUCH'-style) to fill time on it's various television and radio channels.

So there's a couple issues I want to talk about here:

1. Unions being asked to worked with expired contracts
2. These 'modern' employment terms
3. The employer's ability to 'contract' and make do while the strike is happening
   

I think it's awful that in these modern times, we have to resort to CONTINUALLY asking our unionized employees to work long after their contract expires.
We're essentially asking them to put their life on hold when we do this. They can't make sound financial decisions while they're working without a contract, because they know that the wages they're making are calculated using a formula set out when the (now expired) previous contract was drafted, (so probably more than a few years ago) and inevitably the world has not turned out exactly as the contract negotiators predicted, so adjustments need to be made, usually in the form of wage increases for the employees.
The previous contract has language about how to do schedules and how to disperse overtime and how to discipline employees, and how to 'grieve' issues with management.... all that stuff also needs to be updated to reflect what has happened since the original contract was written.
We need our governments and (as in this case) our corporations to understand that simply allowing every contract to expire before you start to negotiate seriously is simply not acceptable. Every time I turn around I hear about another union that had to work for some lengthy period of time, sometimes measured in YEARS, without the updates to their contract that they desperately need. Aliant, the nurses, the highway workers, and now the CBC.
The clauses that say "... this contract will remain in effect until such a time as when a new contract is deemed worthy to replace it ... " or whatever, are very useful and should be in there, but I think there should be control over it as well, so it should say something like ".... if a new contract is not reached within 8 months of the expiration of this contract, the issue will automatically go to arbitration ... " or something like that. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask most unions to stand by their leaders for 8 months or so and hope that the negotiations get somewhere, and I don't think it's unreasonable to ask our governments and corporations to get down to work and get something hammered out in 8 months. Maybe it's off by a bit (would 6 months be better? 12?) but I think something like this needs to be introduced so that we can help avoid these strike situations EVERY TIME. I LOVE that unions have the ability to strike and defend themselves, but they shouldn't be asked to resort to such drastic action so often. Nor should employers (gov, corps) in the case of lockouts.

Coming from a rather ruralized part of the country, I know the effect that these 'modern' employment terms have on people.
They end up working 60+ hours a week, burning themselves out trying to earn a living, because they don't get the benefits that real 'full-time' employees do, so they have to pay for more stuff. They have to earn twice as much money to have the same standard of living.
A lot of the time, they have to call their employer in the morning to see if they're supposed to work that day, and they do that every day. That's no way to live.
They put these people 'on-call' though it really shouldn't be called that, and I don't know how they get away with it or why people agree to do it because they don't get paid for it at all.
Overall the uncertainty of their lives drives them insane, and they inevitably run into financial trouble.
I understand why the union (The Canadian Media Guild - CMG) doesn't want to get involved with this type of employment.

Another thing to consider here, though, is that the CBC is not under and great pressure to get this thing solved right now. There is a glut of available television and radio programming that they can purchase from other networks to keep their airwaves full. It will be crap, and no one will enjoy it as much as they enjoyed the Real McCoy, but it will get them by. They will broadcast sports without commentary and they will probably put most of our news up on the screen as text, but they can get by for a very long time without the union. The union has no such luxury - their members are all on strike pay, and uncertain about their jobs and their future. This is another place where I think a mandatory arbitration clause WITH A MANDATORY TIMEFRAME would help solve some of the problem. Also I think it's worth considering changes to the regulations that companies (governments and corps) have to follow concerning what they can do to keep their business running smoothly during a work stoppage. Can they hire contract workers? How many? (In terms of a percentage of original workforce) At what cost? Are they allowed to hire employees from outside the province? Outside the country? What are their obligations to those 'replacement' employees when the work stoppage is over? and on and on and on...

That's probably fine for now. I have lots to talk about, but I've made my main points I think.

Let me know what you think folks. I know it's summer vacation for most of you 'university folk' but throw me a little sump'in sump'in.