27 January 2007

Aboriginal TV network's editorial employees reject management's 'disrespectful'
contract offer

Canadian Media Guild | TNG Canada Local 30213

Asked to pass judgment on a management contract offer, editorial employees at the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) became a hung jury.

In telephone voting conducted Thursday, 21 of 23 eligible voters cast ballots, with 10 voting yes, 10 voting no; one ballot was spoiled. Ergo: A dead heat, the vote fails and the offer is rejected.

In a communique posted on the Canadian Media Guild website yesterday, members were informed that the bargaining team will meet early next week to "consider our options." The team had "reluctantly" put management's offer of a five-year agreement with annual increases of two per cent to a vote of the membership.

Dan Zeidler, the TNG Canada staff representative who has been involved in the negotiations that have dragged on since the contract expired last April, says that, with both sides fairly close on wage increases, what it comes down to is a matter of "respect."

Key issues for members, who voted 73 per cent in favour of strike action in December, are proper training and performance management, says Zeidler. "These are respect issues which the company needs to get serious about." He adds that, had those issues been addressed in bargaining, "maybe there would have been a deal."

"Some people thought it (the offer) was not good, but good enough. So they held their noses and voted for it. Meanwhile, 50 per cent of the membership thought it wasn't good enough," he observes.

The private, not-for-profit corporation that is based in Winnipeg and which started broadcasting in 1999, is "a relatively new enterprise that has lots of potential. But it's important they develop their journalists," who work out of news bureaus in Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Saskatoon, Vancouver and Yellowknife, says Zeidler.

"These are their frontline people. It really is a question of respect. What we're asking for (in terms of money) is to cover inflation and give us a moderate wage increase."

Lead Guild negotiator Dan Oldfield, in a message to members on Jan. 22, said management's offer of 10 per cent over five years "is less than we think is fair. We believe something closer to 13 per cent over five years, which is what employees at CBC recently negotiated, is much more representative of increases in the industry.”

Zeidler notes that the CMG proposal on salaries would have cost the company about $40,000 a year. It's ironic, he says, that APTN recently received extra funding of $11 million a year, partly as a result of the Guild pressing the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to provide further support for the aboriginal network.

Guild members at APTN include producers, studio crew, reporters, master control operators, videojournalists, researchers, shooter/editors, anchors and broadcast technicians. Editorial staff were the first Guild bargaining unit certified at APTN in 2002, followed by the operations department in 2004.

APTN is the world’s first, and only, national broadcaster dedicated to Indigenous Peoples programming, serving First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples in Canada. About 20 per cent of its programming is in an Aboriginal language.