2015.10.30 | CWA Canada Local 30213 | Canadian Media Guild
Media unions declare non-confidence in CBC leadership, demand resignations
Two media unions that speak for most of CBC/Radio-Canada’s employees have taken the unprecedented step of declaring non-confidence in — and demanding the resignation of — the entire leadership of the public broadcaster.
The Canadian Media Guild (CMG) and Syndicat des communications de Radio-Canada (SCRC) say that president and CEO Hubert Lacroix, along with the 12-member board of directors, all of them Harper government appointees, have “systematically crippled” CBC/Radio-Canada over the last eight years.
Martin O’Hanlon, president of CWA Canada, welcomed the move by the CMG, its largest Local, which is the main union at the CBC. He had counselled such action six months ago, when Lacroix ignored his letter in which he urged the CEO to defend public broadcasting and call on the federal government to restore the $115-million in budget cuts.
“It has been clear for a long time now that the CBC cannot fulfil its federally legislated mandate,” O’Hanlon said. “The president and board had a duty to uphold that mandate and to advocate on behalf of public broadcasting. They chose not to fulfil their duty.
“Instead, they left a vital national institution to hemorrhage, with the loss of thousands of jobs, including hundreds of journalists who act as watchdogs on power and tell the stories of Canadians and our communities. Does anyone think that's good for democracy? For society?”
“With the new Liberal government promising to restore and increase CBC funding, it is time for Lacroix and the rest of the Harper-appointed lackeys to go.”
CMG President Carmel Smyth said in a statement posted on the Guild’s website that “we join with our colleagues represented by the SCRC (the union that represents 3,000 Radio-Canada employees in Quebec and New Brunswick) to ask for an end to the leadership of a team that is implementing a plan to weaken the public broadcaster, and that has lost our confidence.”
“Mr. Lacroix and the CBC/Radio-Canada Board’s failure to step up has broken our confidence in their ability to lead Canada’s largest journalistic organization and national public broadcaster. Instead of fighting for a strong CBC/Radio-Canada, accessible on different platforms, they have announced that, even if the funding is restored, they will continue with the plan to diminish CBC/Radio-Canada.”
Smyth said that, “after much consideration and meetings with our elected union leaders across the country, we are forced to take this step, before the plans implemented by this leadership at CBC/Radio-Canada leave irreversible damage, and a public broadcaster that is a virtual ‘distributor of programming’ and not the creator, and leader it was meant to be.”
The CMG cites “programming cuts across the country and questionable plans to sell off production assets and buildings, which threaten the public broadcaster’s ability to produce programming in both official languages. Along with constant cuts to staff — more than 25 per cent of workers laid off in five years — this damage is the vision of this president and board.”
Isabelle Montpetit, president of the SCRC, told the Toronto Star that, after the two unions discussed the situation, “We concluded that (Lacroix and the board) no longer have legitimacy.”
The SCRC on Nov. 3 will begin circulating a petition among its members that sets out the union’s indictment:
- failure to defend public broadcasting and a shift toward privatization;
- haste in imposing the previous Conservative government’s budget cuts;
- sale of CBC/Radio-Canada properties and an end to in-house production;
- laying off more than 2,100 employees between 2009 and 2010, 1,300 between 2014 and 2015, and the planned departure of more than 1,000 workers between now and 2020.
The CMG said it would add to that list: dismantling of the documentary unit, use of radio on TV, severe reduction of CBC Sports, and outsourcing of national weather coverage.
The unions’ demand that the CBC leadership step down has drawn scant attention in the mainstream media. A story appeared in the Toronto Star, which was picked up by the Huffington Post, the Hamilton Spectator and MetroNews. The only coverage on the CBC came on As It Happens, the nightly newsmagazine on Radio One. Near the end of an interview on Oct. 29 with Conservative Senator Don Plett, he was asked to comment on the unions’ position that was revealed earlier that day. On Oct. 30, host Carol Off interviewed the SCRC’s Montpetit.