CMG and CBC reach settlement
on 2005
outsourcing of publicity
Canadian
Media Guild | CWA Canada
Local 30213
The Guild and the CBC have settled
a grievance stemming from the CBC's decision to outsource
much of its publicity function to Media Profile in
2005. The Guild challenged whether the CBC had a valid
business case to outsource the work.
“The settlement opens up fresh
discussions about bringing at least some of the outsourced
publicity work back inside,” says Lise Lareau,
national president of the CMG. “We’ve always
believed that CBC employees are best placed to do publicity
for the public broadcaster.”
Under terms of the settlement, the CBC will pay the
Guild $100,000 to be distributed to affected employees.
In addition, three existing jobs in communications
will return to the Guild's bargaining unit later this
year.
The Guild and CBC management are
also committed to a series of discussions beginning
in April about other publicity work now being done
independently in Toronto for The Hour, the Steven and
Chris Show and others. The two sides may also discuss
how CBC handles future publicity needs for local news.
A second part of the grievance is scheduled to be
heard by an arbitrator later this year, relating
to communications positions the CBC created in 2005.
The CMG believes that the account managers and publicity
managers that CBC hired and excluded from the bargaining
unit rightly belong in the union.
“What the settlement doesn’t do, unfortunately,
is restore the jobs of those talented and devoted people
whose lives were interrupted so unexpectedly three
years ago,” Lareau adds. “We realized that
an arbitrator would not have ordered the affected employees
to be reinstated. In the end, we decided it was as
important to focus on the future.”
In all 33 jobs were eliminated as a result of the
outsourcing, mainly in Toronto, Halifax and Vancouver.