Unorthodox negotiations yield contract
with 15 - 22% pay increases
Canadian
Media Guild | CWA Canada
Local 30213
Operations employees at the Aboriginal
Peoples Television Network (APTN) have ratified a collective
agreement — reached through an unorthodox approach
to negotiations — that gives them pay increases
ranging from 15 to 22 per cent.
Allan McKay, president of the APTN
branch of the Canadian Media Guild (CMG), says that
key issues — money and a no-layoff clause — were
hammered out in one-on-one meetings between senior
CMG staff representative Dan Oldfield and the network's
CEO. Oldfield had suggested the different approach
in order to avoid the experience of APTN's editorial
unit, which waged a year-long, acrimonious battle to
reach its agreement in March.
After his several meetings
this fall, Oldfield briefed McKay and Derek Christianson,
branch vice-president, who met the next day with
management and "pretty
much wrapped things up."
The tentative deal that won 90-per-cent approval in
a ratification vote last week contains several improvements:
all pay scales in the bargaining unit increase,
plus there are general salary increases (depending
on where an employee is on the pay scale and date
of hiring, salaries increase between 15 and 22 per
cent over the course of the three-year agreement);
salary increases retroactive to August, when the
contract expired, and a signing bonus of $500;
a clause that disallows layoffs due to technological
change;
improved family leave provisions;
an annual APTN-wide paid holiday on the third Monday
in February, declared as Louis
Riel Day.
Management also agreed to move the collective agreement's
expiry date to April 24, 2011, which coincides with
the term of the editorial unit's contract. Editorial
staff were the first Guild bargaining unit certified
at APTN in 2002, followed by the operations department
in 2004.
The bargaining unit's 24 members,
most of whom work in Winnipeg, perform jobs ranging
from master control to broadcast technician, editor,
camera operator, director and graphic artist. Four
staff members are in bureaus in Iqaluit, Ottawa, Montreal
and Whitehorse.
APTN, the world’s first, and only, national
broadcaster dedicated to Indigenous Peoples programming,
serves First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples
in Canada. About 20 per cent of its programming is
in an Aboriginal language.