Murray Mosher photo

Guild delegates to the CLC convention included, from right, TNG Canada/CWA Director Arnold Amber, Canadian Media Guild president Lise Lareau,
TNG Canada VP West Scott Edmonds, Jan Ravensbergen, president of the
Montreal Newspaper Guild, Lois Kirkup, president of the Ottawa Newspaper Guild, and (not in photo) Barbara Saxberg, a director of the Canadian Media Guild.

20 June 2005

Guild wins support at convention
for position on media issues

Resolution seeks more funding for CBC,
hearings on concentration, Canadian Press

Though small in size, the TNG Canada delegation was a large presence at the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) convention in Montreal last week. As a result, media matters made it into the spotlight and the Guild won valuable support for its position on various issues.

In addition, Arnold Amber, Director of TNG Canada/CWA, was re-elected as a Vice-President representing Smaller Unions on the CLC Executive Committee.

The Canadian Media Guild (CMG) distributed 3,000 flyers to raise awareness among the 2,000 convention-goers about the long-running dispute at the CBC, where negotiations for a new contract have been going on for more than a year and a strike vote is scheduled to be held July 13-14.

"It's important to have had media issues discussed when everyone was focused on health care," says Lise Lareau, president of the CMG, the largest union at the CBC and TNG Canada's largest Local. It was also valuable, she says, to be able to discuss media issues with fellow delegates and to draw their attention to the fact that the convention was receiving little coverage in mainstream media.

The CMG also represents employees of Canadian Press / Broadcast News, the national, bilingual news service that is threatened by CanWest Global Corporation. TNG Canada, in a major brief presented last month to the Senate committee studying media concentration, appealed to federal politicians to preserve and protect the independent co-operative from corporate interests.

The Guild also forwarded its recommendations to the CLC for consideration at the convention. Amber, a CBC journalist and producer for more than 25 years, was joined by Scott Edmonds, Western Vice-President of TNG Canada/CWA and a Canadian Press employee, in speaking to delegates about the CBC, print and broadcast media ownership and the threat to Canadian Press.

The resolution, which won unanimous approval, commits the CLC to call on the federal government to "hold hearings to examine the impact of the concentration of Canadian news media ownership on the Canadian Press / Broadcast News" and to "outlaw corporate cross-ownership of newspapers and broadcasting outlets, and to take all necessary measures to force divestiture of media outlets to ensure that such cross-ownership is eliminated." The CLC will also "demand that the federal government maintain existing restrictions on the foreign ownership of our broadcast, cable and telecommunications companies."

The CLC is also going to bat for public broadcasting, urging the government to provide CBC the "funding necessary to expand Canadian TV drama, local news programming, and radio stations in under-served communities" and "to add permanently to the CBC’s annual budget allocation the $60-million fund to boost Canadian programming that so far has been provided on a year-to-year basis."

The Congress notes that "CBC provides the best hope of providing news and cultural programming to all Canadians that is fair and accurate and in the public interest." It also points out that "public broadcasting is crucial to fostering a culture of respect for diversity and democratic participation in Canada."

The CMG, meanwhile, informed CLC convention delegates through its flyer that CBC "wants the right to phase out its permanent workforce" by making all future hires contract employees. The Guild argues this is tantamount to dismantling Canada's national public source of independent news and culture. The flyer urges all unionized workers to demand that Ottawa give more money to the CBC so it can better serve their communities, and to ask President Robert Rabinovitch to work with CBC employees to strengthen public broadcasting and to negotiate a fair deal with the CMG.