Open Letter From a Locked-Out CBC Radio Employee by risa
Hello everyone. I don’t like inflicting my politics on anyone, so you can ignore this note if you want, but I just wanted to let you know about my situation and how it affects all of you.
I believe most of you are fairly regular CBC listeners. So no doubt you have noticed a drastic change on the airwaves—namely, the soft-rock that’s replacing your local morning program, and the BBC World Service that has snuck into As it Happens time, and those voices announcing song titles and weather that seem a little nervous because usually their job is to sit in their offices and make big important decisions, not participate in programming.
Ninety per cent of CBC employees have been locked out. That’s about 5,500 people. We are producers, technicians, archivists, camera operators, hosts. I’m sure you’ve noticed our absence on your airwaves. I’ve spent almost a week walking the picket lines in Ottawa, and the situation doesn’t look good. The CBC isn’t yet ready to negotiate with our union, the Canadian Media Guild. So we wait, and the rest of the country also waits to get their public radio and television back.
My opinion is obviously biased. But I can give you objective numbers. In my English regional radio department, there are a total of 13 people who have permanent jobs who run 3 daily current affairs programs. And when you take away the technicians and hosts and manager-types, that leaves about 4 people to think up, research, find and produce stories for all 3 shows. Obviously they can’t do it all. So who’s generating all the story ideas, the contacts, the documentaries, the interviews? Casual and temporary staff. There are about 20 or so casuals in my department. At least half of us come in every single day to ensure the programs have what they need. So that’s 10 jobs that are needed in Ottawa. But we remain casuals because we are told there is no money to hire us permanently.
I feel lucky in many ways—I am at the beginning of my career, I have been given lots of opportunities to work on different shows and I have received good feedback. As a young person with no dependents, I can afford to maybe not know if I’m going to be working next week. But a lot of people can’t. And I know several people who’ve been doing this for 5 years or more.
The main sticking point in negotiations right now is that CBC management wants the power to hire LESS permanent staff and more contract and temporary positions. More people like me, who have no job security and no benefits.
How does this impact you? The CBC is only as good as its programming, and therefore only as good as the people who create that programming. Having zero security and always worrying about where we will work next week means we can’t fully concentrate on our jobs. We can’t be as creative and fully engaged with our work as we’d like to because we are always wondering if we should be looking somewhere else for a real job.
Plus, you need permanent employees to develop contacts over time and get the stories that you need to hear. That’s how good journalism works. You can’t just send somebody to Iraq and expect them to be able to tell the public what’s really going on. They need time to meet people and time to research and find the important info, and temporary employees don’t get that time.
In short, the programming suffers when we can’t comfortably do our jobs. And you are hearing it suffering right now.
If you’re upset by any of this, you can call or write a letter or somehow show your support for CBC workers. You can read the union’s side of the story at www.cmg.ca and CBC management’s side of the story at www.cbcnegotiations.ca. I’m not writing to force your opinion one way or the other, but you should read up on this and decide for yourself. Because the CBC is your broadcaster, and you should have a say.
You can express your thoughts by writing to your MP (check out http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/house/PostalCode.asp?Source=SM for contact details). You can also write the CBC ombudsman, Vincent A Carlin, at ombudsman@cbc.ca. And you can write to CBC president Robert Rabinovitch at robert_rabinovitch@cbc.ca. You can also call audience relations at 1-866-306-INFO.
I apologize for the rant. But this is important to me, not just because of my job, but because I have grown up listening to the CBC, I believe in it strongly, and I want to see it go down the right path. If you do too, let somebody know!
Thanks,
Caitlin
August 20th, 2005 at 1:06 pm
Caitlin, I thoroughly agree with you. I am a listener/viewer and occasional employee (data entry in Employment Equity, Human Resources, Ottawa). CBC is vital to this country. I listened to Peter Gzowski when he was hosting Morningside, thoroughly enjoyed Royal Canadian Air Farce on radio (and now on TV), Eclectic Circus, Double Exposure, etc.
Without CBC none of this programs would have had a chance to exist. I can’t picture Air Farce on private TV.
Good luck. I hope that everyone on the picket lines gets back to work soon so we can hear/see Shelagh Rogers, Eric Friesen, Anna Maria Tremonti and others back on the air.