Aboriginal TV network's editorial staff
ratifies 5-year agreement
Canadian
Media Guild | TNG Canada
Local 30213
Members of the Canadian Media Guild's
editorial unit at the Aboriginal Peoples Television
Network have given an enthusiastic thumbs up to a new
five-year collective agreement.
The membership, casting ballots by
telephone on Wednesday, voted 92 per cent in favour
of ratifying the deal that took almost a year and the
threat of strike action to hammer out.
The two dozen staff, who work
as producers, studio crew, reporters, master control
operators, videojournalists, researchers, shooter/editors,
anchors and broadcast technicians, will receive salary
increases of two per cent in each of the five years,
retroactive to April 24, 2006, as well as a $500 “retention
incentive.”
More important to the membership,
however, is a stipulation in the agreement that the
two sides "commit to
begin work within 90 days on a plan to improve the
workplace relationships, focusing on creating a culture
of mutual respect, addressing workload concerns, improving
training and professional development, and implementing
a positive feedback process for performance reviews."
Editorial staff at APTN, the
world’s first,
and only, national broadcaster dedicated to Indigenous
Peoples programming, have long complained about a lack
of training and opportunities for professional development.
Dan Zeidler, the TNG Canada
staff representative who was involved in the negotiations,
says 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.
The network serves First Nations,
Métis and
Inuit peoples in Canada. About 20 per cent of its programming
is in an Aboriginal language.
Editorial staff were the first Guild bargaining unit
certified at APTN in 2002, followed by the operations
department in 2004.