We are fast approaching what could be considered CMG’s “Katrina Moment” – the point where leadership fails to recognize the magnitude of a crisis, and fails in almost every conceivable way.
We’ve all read the CMG emails that come every few weeks. It’s usually the same thing written slightly differently each time.
There’s the bit about writing some strongly worded letters to the government. And the stuff about holding talks with management to reduce layoffs. And also the comforting part where they talk about making sure that your ass is kicked out of the building with as much dignity as possible.
But what does all of this mean? What’s the plan? Is there a plan? At what point will they let us in on it?
If you think I come across as someone taking their frustration out on the union because of stress, you would be correct. That is exactly what I’m doing. It’s weird to me that an organization that represents people who communicate for a living is not engaging us directly when there are so many tools at its disposal. (To be fair, maybe this is as much our fault for not engaging with our union more than we do. And by we, I mean me, because to be honest, for a long time I mostly ignored the minutiae of CMG business.)
So I guess what I’m saying is that I’m sorry for ignoring you, CMG, and now that you have my mostly undivided attention, I’d just like to know more about what you are proposing to management. Does it reflect the magnitude of this crisis? Does it take a creative, damn-the-torpedo approach to foster some old-timey union solidarity and keep as many of us working as possible?
(FYI: YES, I will go to the next available EAP “How to Be Optimistic” seminar.)
65 Comments
For those who like the CBC – they can watch it for only $34 per year. If you do not believe in the CBC then please change channel & pay please +$50 per month – just in case that's $600 per year – for your preferred Americanized content that's very often produced, hosted & researched anyways by Canadians, (now working for big US dollars) who had a first start at it thanks to their years of training experience at the CBC (that you do not watch).
Stop your ignorant complaining of the CBC.
I believe the word parasite would describe pretty much all the workers at CBC.As far as obvious bias how about Krista and Pablo,Christina cut and splice Lawand and the aforementioned Mallick .Mallicks article was so bad Cruikshank was forced to apologizeand the Ombudsman came down with a ruling declaring CBC needed more balance .Six months later we’re still waiting for that balance but we’re not holding our breaths.
If Heather is vermin then she’s a useful one to have. The word parasite is more appropriate.
She’s an asset to this country, but the CBC is out of line paying her anything when her talent isn’t being used for broadcast.
If Heather Mallick is what passes for vermin in Canada right now, may we be blessed with more like her.
Oh, and “Anonymous 1:00”, thank you for taking the time to read and reply to my earlier comments. I hope you have a good day, wherever you are.
“Anonymous 12:52” replying; “Anonymous 1:00”, please substantiate your claim by indicating which arguments you feel are indeed articulate; and if they are empirically supportable, clear examples by direct quotes from the content referenced. In my mind, “You are vile excuses for human beings…” is not an articulate argument, but one that appeals to emotion. I ask you for a counter-argument as to how this is at an “adult level”, to quote from my earlier comment.
I don’t understand how I have failed to grasp the level at which most of these arguments are written – not at an adult level, in my opinion – but you yourself haven’t made a constructive argument by concluding with an unsubstantiated blanket condemnation. That’s spurious at worst and sloppy at best, and I’m sure you could do better if you applied yourself.
Let me be clear: I am not arguing for or against the CBC here. Most of the arguments I read on this board against the existence of the CBC are barely intelligible, and I simply want to see some rational discussion.
And no, I don’t work for the CBC.
Anonymous 12:52,The arguments provided are articulate and are at least, empirically supportable.
Your inability to grasp this is a the basis for your, and CBCs, failure.
Agreed. If you don’t have anything nice to say, at least write it good.
;)
(And remind me to laugh and dance at your family’s funeral Anon. 17:08..may they all suffer a tragic and untimely accident and leave you destitute..oh ya… and also with AIDS and a pet with Cancer!)
See? It’ not cute at all…excuse me while I go disinfect my fingers. Even in hyperbole, it feels unclean.
:(
Further to my comment as “Anonymous 12:52”, I appeal to anyone who has formed a negative viewpoint of the CBC to provide an articulate, supportable, cogent argument, without resorting to ill manners or name-calling.
CBC is a mismanaged, wasteful, bloated place. Most people who work there couldn’t hack it in the real world- hence massive panic. CBC will survive – it just has to bring itself (kicking and screaming) into the realities of 2009.
What the hell is “lefty trendoid fascism”?
And, please for the love of god, learn how to use punctuation. You’ll never be more than an Internet crank without it.
To most Taxpayers ,Heather Mallick and her ilk are the face of the CBC.A form of smug, intolerant, lefty-trendoid fascism . CBC lost its way in the early 80s due to poor management.Fire them all, then go after the HRCs
How come a piece of vermin like Heather Mallick still has a job at CBC.Just wonderin.
Wow.
Just wow.
I’d love to hear specific examples of support for Hamas, Al Quaeda, etc, etc… but I’m guessing you don’t even watch or listen to the CBC.
Doing drive-by internet swipes doesn’t really help your cause any, either.
You forgot to mention our potty mouths, poor grooming, penchant for sodomy.
I really hope everyone in the CMG gets laid off, loses their house, their spouse, their family, and never work again. You are vile excuses for human beings and I celebrate every day that someone gets fired from the CBC.
Hopefully we’ll get you in front of courts for your aiding and abetting genocide by your media reports in support of Hamas, Al Quaeda, Taliban, terrorists everywhere, and your anti-americanism.
As someone who’s lost their job already, to the people who are gloating? I hope you lose your job too.
It’s not like I’ve been here forever, or have any affect on how much is spent. Why gloat over my misfortune?
Oh, that’s right. Because all you can do is parrot Harper and ‘your’ media.
If not for HNIC,why would anyone listen to or watch anything that CBC offers?Thanks to CBC,I now know how defined Michelle Obama’s arms are,how Canadians want Omar Khadr brought back home,how the populace wants the military out of Afghanistan,how Harper is such a meanie,but most importantly,how we as Canadians will suffer culturally when these cuts take effect.If the CBC is so good then it would/should survive without the taxpayers footing the bill.
You have to ask yourself about the quality of an individual who visits a website where they know they’ll find people who might lose their jobs, with the sole purpose of gloating.
You guys believe the CBC holds a leftwing bias, but there is a very good reason for this. It’s because you lean so far to the right, that anything in the centre would appear to be on the left. It’s funny, because the extreme left things the CBC is run by rightwingers.
News is what you make of it, buddy. Myself, I’m sick of right-wing “talking points” pundits like Andrew Coyne on the National… which I’m guessing you don’t watch anyway.
Sorry that some will be joining the unemployment line,I have little sympathy for CBC however.If CBC offered unbiased news and less ideological programming,it might garner more viewership.As it stands,the “I’m Peter Mansbridge”and you’re not crowd’s demise can’t come quick enough.
School Bus Drivers are needed $11.00/hr, no benefits,try it out youll like it.
LOL @ “loosing”.
The geniuses are coming out of the woodwork.
Sorry to hear that many people are loosing their jobs, but since you have been wasting 1 billion of my tax dollars for the last ? years, I can’t say I feel sorry about it.
If it was up to me, I would fire or privatize the lot of you.
Perhaps if you had provided value for that 1 billion/year you would not be in this situation, or you would at least have more support from the public.
I like the idea of a Canadian public broadcaster to “tell our stories” but you have done such a poor job of it, with seemingly little desire to “tell our stories” vice your socialist, big government stories, that I think the best option is to just wipe the slate clean.
It couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch.
Hello CBCers.
This is a note of respect from a former co-worker who knows how very, very good you are. How you have struggled to deliver a great product to the Canadian taxpayers, while staving off the always new and always greedy bunch known as “CBC Management”.
I disagree with someone’s opinion that you will all hold onto your jobs with cold dead hands. I think you’ll be like the long-suffering spouse of a sociopath who has ridden you hard during the marriage and then announced that they’re moving on without you. As in: “How much will you be paying me to go and can I leave? Now?”
After that you will feel euphoria(sprinkled with a little trepidation, as it always is).
Or, in the words of an owl who sung to me in the Valley of Darkness immediately following the end of my long CBC career: “Some of the happiest people I know used to work at CBC, and I predict that you will soon be one of them”.
check out your retirement options folks….there’s a great big beautiful world out there.
Elf
Hmmm,, if the job market is that bad, seems like instead of less pay and less time, you would take less pay and more time and try to ride the storm out.
Cry more, clueless propagandists.
As an ex staffer(redundant twice still working as a freelancer)it makes me ill that the cmg even represents the workforce.when I was leaving they couldn’t even give me a good argument to stay except that cbc wouldn’t get a cut of my pay booeffinfhoo
I’m surprised we were’nt called “Pumpkins”
Ah, another drive-by clueless apostrophe user. Bye!
You poor poor little baby’s.How horrible you’re all laid off,my god the humanity,how dare harper do this to you.
i think this is all really terrible…i do. BUT cbc *had* to be brought up to speed….with the way the rest of the world works. working here i have seen BRUTAL abuse of the system…and i think an abrupt shake up is just what this place needs…
Sorry Ouimet. I just watched a bunch of people lose their jobs today. And sorry to the people I’ve repeatedly told to fuck off.
You may not have been trying to be nasty, but you came across as an uppity douche to some people have an unusually bad day.
You can sit there and tell me that the private sector never slacks off, but that is the biggest load of horseshit on the planet. Sorry guy, but nobody buys that. And if you’d read my post, I pointed out that in the end, I work more than the standard day, so if I fuck off on cbc time, just deal with it, because I more than work it off on my own time, and at my own expense, as do thousands of my colleagues.
And to the dick who said this:
“That we’re used to.
That’s how it was, and that’s the problem.
You’ve held Canada down long enough.”
Yeah… cuz a cbc-er FINALLY telling you assholes where to get off with your hate happens all the time. I think I heard Mansbridge telling you off the other night.
Get a grip. You can’t come to a sight where people are talking about how they’re all losing their jobs, and act like a cock, and not expect to get slapped. So fuck off. Go back to Small Dead Animals. I think there is a conversation going on about how evolution is a hoax.
I’ll say it again: As a viewer/listener/reader, I don’t consider CBC to be a waste of my tax dollars. Even now. I have been getting value for money for a long damn time.
I won’t apologize to any of the people who just barged in here to make their discontent with CBC’s existence known for saying this either. Ever.
Nice.
Nice to hear from Lise. You begin to know intuitively who the good guys are, and when you see them step up, and respond to a genuine concern, we all sit back.
Respect.
I hate it when Small Dead Animals links to this site. I really do. Everything goes stupid. And this time, I see, she took some ideas from JFW in the link farm. Unattributed, of course.
That’s all right. Let’s just knock it off with the ear fucking and call it even, ok?
Oh, and by the way, I just got hit with an approximate 25% pay cut. Those long 5:30am to 5:30pm days still exist, now I just don’t get paid the same. Forgot to add that into my post above.
Actually I wasn’t trying to be nasty about the comment I made about the work hours comment posting, I just thought it inappropriate is all.
To the responder who thinks I should fuck myself in the ear, you’re merely reinforcing preconceptions many have about ceeb workers; personally I take no pleasure in people losing their jobs. And NO, you should NOT be slacking off, try that in the private sector these days, where engineering professionals such as myself are AT work between 5:30/ 6:30 am and don’t get home til 5:00/ 6:00 AND are on call to return to work in the case of an emergency. Things are tough all over bud, you don’t need to be a vulgar ass when making your point.
Don’t like it? Fuck yourself. Fuck yourself right in the ear. “
That we’re used to.
That’s how it was, and that’s the problem.
You’ve held Canada down long enough.
Your one way communication and socialists-are-good story line have been pre-empted for reality dickhead.
For a change; fuck you, now if I could only get you to pay me for abusing you like this for forty something years I’d be willing to call it even.
But that’s not reality either is it?
So that’s why I’d rather keep my money and put anythin I like in my ear, or on my TV.
I don’t need some unemployable failed actor with torrets sucking the gubmint tit putting anything in my ear anymore.
You’re fired.
“Slackoff all you want on your own time
“Funny, all of the comments were made during working hours. Shouldn’t ceeb workers be, in, working?
Just asking.”
Well first of all, I probably shouldn’t respond in anger, but what the hell! I’d like to invite you to kiss my ass. Pucker up.
I’m pretty sure that on a day when news of this magnitude is rolled out, people are allowed to “slack off” a bit, and hunt for news and discussion pertaining to their dire situation. Don’t like it? Fuck yourself. Fuck yourself right in the ear.
Now, just so we’re clear, guess what? I start my day at home working at around 7:45am. When I go home shortly after 5, I’m online again throughout the evening working. And guess what? I don’t bill for my extra time, OR using my internet service.
“Rabid socialist union worshippers”, my ass.
Funny, all of the comments were made during working hours. Shouldn’t ceeb workers be, in, working?
Just asking.
Rarely watch anything by cbc anymore, so cutting just about any, if not all, programs would be fine by this taxpayer.
ha ha welcome to the real world go get another job theirs lots of them
Hi ExCBC watcher here.
Since you’ve turned into Canada’s Karl Marx fan club and El Jeezeera training camp I’ve lost interest.
Maybe if you weren’t such rabid socialist union worshippers you’d get it, brother.
Sorry to hear it’s the nannystaters turn for a haircut; maybe try something other than the usual queen street mohawk this time since you might have to get a real job this time..
Or maybe some of you brave commie workers can pretend to work for a dollar a year like those evil AIG capitalists do?
Tear Down the CBC, it’s a total waste of money.
Hi Lisa,
I’m sure you’re busy these days, so thanks for taking the time to comment. I look forward to hearing what the union is proposing.
Anonymous.
The CMG is a fee driven wind bag. Can’t see much past that.
From a CMG email.
The cuts in French services were announced yesterday. The vast majority of the French-service cuts are concentrated in the province of Quebec and in Moncton, NB; about 18 Guild positions will be eliminated. Some highlights of the cuts affecting Guild members that will be implemented as of the end of the season:
– in Windsor, the radio morning show and Saturday show will be cancelled, to be replaced by regional inserts into Toronto programming
– overnight network music programming currently produced out of Windsor, Edmonton and Vancouver will be eliminated
– regional radio noon shows will be replaced by a new national show – it’s not yet known where this program will originate
– on the TV side, the regional noon news program out of Ottawa will be cancelled
Рthe supper-hour regional T̩l̩journal program will be reduced from 60 minutes to 30 for the summer season
– the program Zeste will be put on hiatus
It’s obviously a busy day, but I just wanted to reply to some of this very quickly. The main thing is: we’re all forced to wait until the CBC itself discusses impact on Guild jobs (later today) before anyone does anything. I know people are edgy….and we all want more information … now. However, this round of layoffs has two main wrinkles 1) we have to wait to see if the voluntary retirement incentive plan gets approval from the government and assuming it does, how many people take it up … because if those numbers are substantial, the need to do other creative measures will be lessened, 2) this is all going to take a long time…this thing is being done by piecemeal, unfortunately. Layoff notices won’t *begin* to be distributed until May. That’s good and bad. The uncertainty is being dragged out for sure, but there’s time to be smart and consider all proposals…and more importantly, know what the proposals are meant to address.
Some thinking about how to mitigate layoffs has gone on, and there have been preliminary discussions with the other unions and management, but because no one has enough facts right now, it’s hard to proceed meaningfully.
Take it from me….there will be plenty of time to discuss all this and share ideas as we go forward. (Unfortunately, we’ve done layoffs too many times and we know.)
But first let’s digest this week’s news. I know the feeling of dissatisfaction that comes with just looking at numbers (read my blog written yesterday off the CMG web site about that), but it’s all we have for now….
Lise Lareau
National President
Canadian Media Guild
In an ideal world all of the older workers would take early retirement – god knows this place could use some fresh blood – but with the financial markets being like they are ,and, their nest eggs shrinking… you’ll have to pry jobs out of their cold dead hands.
Four day works weeks sound like the way to go – I know I’m in – but I doubt that enough people will be selfless (or wise) enough to go for it.
Around here it’s like lord of the flies at the best of times – now I worry that the CBC will eat itself.
Almost everyone on contract (or staff) below the level of AP makes below or around 40k. In Television that is the vast majority of people.
LeonT,
We just had a very open discussion about this in our unit. Widespread support so far as I can tell. Our manager is bringing it up with HR.
Well said, LeonT. And good luck.
I’ll be talking about this at the meeting at 1400 in Toronto and at the follow up meeting with the CMG. I will stand in solidarity with anyone who brings this up with the APS or any of our brothers and sisters at Radio-Canada.
It’s time to open up the agendas of the on-going meetings now. Not in April. We know where the government stands and we know where we stand, based on these comments.
We can’t cross the Rubicon one by one. But we can cross it together, worker and manager alike.
Who’s with me?
LeonT
There’s too many people on contract to simply cancel them all no matter what the position. Almost half of Quebec is on contract.
Yes – I know of people who got contracts renewed yesterday.
Would they renew ANY contracts with staff getting laid off, or do the layoffs account for contract people not getting renewed as well? What’s the priority? Soe contract people have been around longer than staff.
Wait. I see it. 62.5.
I’d try to sell them on that if you can afford to do it.
It would suck for contractors making very little cash, but are there many people making $30k? When I was on contract I was actually making more cash than I make now that I’m staff. (no retirement buy-out)
The other option for contract workers is of course unemployment. Think of it as a damned if you do, really damned if you don’t
I also agree it wouldn’t work for Contract employees, which represent most of the younger and new workers at the CBC. Those workers also make much less than the people that have been here for 20-30 years, so 1 day a week may not be too bad when you are making $75,000 and have a house paid off or mostly paid for. But at $30,000 – 40k, a day off in a city as expensive as Toronto or Vancouver is a pretty big hit.
I think what you guys have there is a great idea, but is there a provision for voluntary unpaid leave in your contract with the Ceeb? Or has it been customary practice?
Not shitting on a great idea. Don’t know what your contract looks like. Just asking.
Who knows? In my experience… CMG has never been all that useful to contract employees.
But if each unit or show was informed that they had to reduce their expenditures by X amount, and told that this could be done through either layoffs, or reduced work, I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible to reduce the hours of both staff and contractors in order to save jobs.
Where do contract employees fit into all of this?
There are a lot of reasons unpaid leave days would be a good idea.
– It could save hundreds of jobs.
– Allow CBC to retain much of it’s workforce, and therefore production capacity.
– Save CBC having to pay out considerable severance.
– And give staff more time off for leisure, or finding other work.
It would be nice if the CMG was coming up with creative ways to prevent involuntary job loses. Why aren’t we talking about unpaid days off for example? Almost everyone I’ve talked to would be happy to take Friday afternoons or Monday mornings off unpaid (works out to about 10% reduction in pay) in order to prevent layoffs, especially of younger employees who have nowhere else to go. I know I would.