Members at Alliance Atlantis
reach
1st contract deal just as CRTC
approves takeover by CanWest
Canadian
Media Guild | CWA Canada
Local 30213
It would be entirely understandable
if unionized staff at Alliance Atlantis Communications
can't quite decide whether 2008 should be welcomed
with cheers or jeers.
Last week, the 100 members of the Canadian Media Guild
(CMG) learned two things: they finally had a first
collective agreement, and the federal broadcast regulator
had given its approval for CanWest Global Corporation
to become their new corporate master.
In one of the few public notes of
protest at the decision announced Thursday by the Canadian
Radio-television Communications Commission (CRTC),
the CMG accused the regulator of demonstrating a "disregard
for the principle of Canadian ownership of our media." The
Broadcasting Act states that the country's broadcast
system must be effectively owned and controlled by
Canadians.
The Guild called on Parliament to review the rules
on foreign ownership in light of the CRTC decision
that allows U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs to finance
two-thirds of the $1.5-billion deal yet hold only 33
per cent of the voting shares.
Only a day earlier, the CMG announced that a tentative
deal on a first contract for AAC staff had been reached
after 16 months of negotiations. The bargaining committee
said that a proposal the night before by management
was a significant improvement on one received Dec.
14.
Early in the new year, members at AAC will vote on
whether to ratify the deal, which contains a three-per-cent
salary increase (retroactive to Jan. 1, 2007) and 2.5-per-cent
increases for each of 2008 and 2009, with another 3.0
per cent on Jan. 1, 2010.
Although the Guild will continue to represent its
members at Alliance
Atlantis and the ownership change
will not affect implementation of the collective agreement,
there are fears that CanWest will milk AAC for all
it can.
“We worry that the sale will reduce competition
in the specialty sector and that the Alliance Atlantis
channels will be used as cash cows to finance the growing
CanWest media empire,” says Lise Lareau, national
president of the CMG. “That will likely mean
even less original programming for Canadians and fewer
jobs in this important sector of the economy.”
The AAC employees represented by the Guild are all
located in Toronto, where they work in master control,
engineering, post-production, closed captioning, library,
presentation, quality control and dubbing.
AAC is the distributor of major
films in Canada and operates 13 television channels,
including the Food Network, History Television, Showcase
and BBC Canada. The company's website notes that
it "is dedicated
to supporting Canadian culture. Alliance Atlantis'
Showcase is the only Canadian network, including the
CBC, to air an entirely Canadian drama schedule in
the heart of prime time."
Lareau says the CMG is "very concerned about
the further concentration of media ownership this deal
represents. The union had urged the CRTC to impose
measures to protect the distinctiveness of the Alliance
Atlantis specialty stations. For example, the CRTC
could have restricted the amount of programming repeated
between CanWest’s existing conventional stations
and the specialty channels. It has not."
In announcing the decision
last week, chairman Konrad von Finckenstein said
the CRTC was "satisfied
that this transaction meets the requirements for Canadian
control both in law and fact,” and that Goldman
Sachs would not control the Canadian broadcasting operations.
Lareau, however, disagrees.
“The companies have tied themselves into pretzels
to try to fit with the letter of the law,” she
says. “But the spirit of that law is clearly
broken. After all, we all know that Goldman Sachs will
hold the purse strings for the foreseeable future.”
