23 May 2006

Guild leads national protest
against privatization
of Canada's public broadcaster

Canadian Media Guild | TNG Canada Local 30213

Alarmed by what it sees as the slow-but-sure privatization of the public broadcaster, the Canadian Media Guild is firing up a national campaign against management's plan to dismantle English-language television.

The first target of the Stop the Sellout campaign is federal Heritage Minister Bev Oda. Guild members and the public have since last Thursday been sending her emails and postcards that urge her to intercede in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's plan, announced April 20, to axe the TV design department this summer. This, says the CMG, is at the core of the plan to gut CBC television and turn it into an agency that simply buys and airs privately produced shows.

If the CBC is allowed to close the department at the Toronto Broadcasting Centre and get rid of the skilled craftspeople, equipment, props and costumes that helped create 53 years of television history in Canada, it would be a violation of our cultural heritage, says Lise Lareau, national president of the CMG.

“The CBC is also pre-empting the government mandate review and public input by taking this action now,” says Lareau, who notes that Oda reportedly wants to move quickly to launch the review. CBC management is expected to appear before the Heritage Committee on May 30, followed by Oda herself on June 1.

The Guild, which represents 5,500 CBC employees across the country, kicked off its campaign May 18 with a national day of action. In a Guild-wide announcement that was scheduled for today, members were to be notified that this Friday, May 26, will be the next day of action, when they can assist in distributing postcards, flyers and buttons to enlist public support.

The tactics are reminiscent of the CMG's successful campaign during the lockout of CBC employees in 2005. The Guild, using TNG Canada's enMasse program, has an email campaign under way at its StopTheSellout.ca website, in which people can send letters to the Heritage minister. The website also features news updates and links to other advocacy groups such as Our Public Airwaves. "And this is just the beginning," promise organizers.

Although the main event at the Toronto Broadcasting Centre was cancelled Thursday due to heavy rain, CMG members turned out anyway "eager to ask questions" about the layoff of 79 people in the design department and other recent cuts at the public broadcaster.

The day before, the City of Toronto's Arts and Culture Roundtable passed a resolution calling for more federal funding for the CBC and for the preservation of TV production facilities in the Broadcasting Centre.

Guild leaders asked the Roundtable to consider the Broadcasting Centre a cultural facility on par with other cultural buildings in the city that are now undergoing a high-profile renaissance. The members were also asked to support efforts to increase the CBC's federal funding in order to preserve the downtown television and film production capability provided by the TV design department.

"We have always believed that what happens to the Broadcasting Centre should be a matter of public debate and public policy," says Arnold Amber, president of the Guild's CBC Branch and Director of TNG Canada/CWA.  "That's why we took our case to the city. More important, we are seeking public allies in CBC's fight to get the funding it needs. We think this is a positive alternative to leasing out space to make money."

In an editorial posted on the StopTheSellout.ca website, CMG president Lareau writes:

"The death of the TV design department is more than the loss of 79 jobs. It marks a serious shift in direction for the public broadcaster and the Broadcasting Centre itself.

"There was no financial imperative to kill the TV design department ... . By all information available to us, the department was paying for itself. Because it’s such a magnificent facility in the heart of downtown Toronto, and because it offered one-stop shopping on a wide range of TV and film crafts, it was getting a lot of work. Directors and producers – inside CBC and out – are reeling from this announcement.

"So why is it being axed? A year ago, TV vice-president Richard Stursberg told CBC employees at a town-hall meeting on the 10th floor that the Toronto Production Centre was to be “restructured” to divert money to programming that would be mainly bought from outside, commercial producers.

"And here’s the trick: TV design takes up a lot of space – valuable real estate in the downtown commercial market. Dropping design work and buying the service from freelancers and companies with their own shops – mostly outside the downtown core – would free up space in the building that could be leased to higher-paying tenants. Then you can take your real estate profits and use them to buy programming."