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The CBC's largest union has voted overwhelmingly in favour of a strike if its negotiators can't get a deal with the corporation.

The Canadian Media Guild (CMG) announced Tuesday afternoon that its members had voted 87.3 per cent to support taking strike action, if necessary.

The union said 67 per cent of employees turned out to vote.

The CMG represents about 5,500 technicians, journalists and administrative staff in most parts of Canada, except the province of Quebec and the city of Moncton, N.B.

"This is very strong support for the Guild and a flat rejection of the corporation's vision of the future," the union's CBC branch president, Arnold Amber, said in a news release.

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You could almost feel it in the air.

I picked up a nifty "The National" T-shirt in black before I left and a CBC decal for the car to befuddle my fellow USians while driving in Iowa. And I'll have a bit of the Peter Mansbridge legend to take with me.

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Originally posted by Hephaestion:
Yes, the CBC is going to put you in the poorhouse, Gir.

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No, I'm not that delusional.

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If this dispute gets nasty, I hope Martin gets posessed by the ghost of Reagan: tell them all to go to hell, and privatize the CBC.

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That has fairly obviously been the plan for some time, death by a thousand cuts. This looks like the endgame. The Asper Clan must be so happy, all their efforts are bearing fruit. Now if only they can eliminate the CRTC...

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Whoo boy. I remember the last strike - it went on for quite a while, didn't it? Rerun after rerun...

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The point of a public broadcaster, Gir, here as in Britain, is to make sure that all the news and the whole of the national culture gets covered, not just what some smart-mouth marketing execs are willing to dictate payment for.

If you think that any of those papers you listed above, including the Globe and Mail, is giving you the news even close to competently, then you have never seen a good newspaper.

There is a reason that Brits and other Europeans have a slightly less disastrous take on international affairs than do North Americans, and that is that at least some of them get informed, daily, through the BBC and through their papers, of what life is actually like elsewhere in the world.

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Originally posted by Gir Draxon:
Oh Noes! Not the CBC! Now where am I going to get my Canadian news from? Well, aside from the Globe & Mail, the National Post, the Calgary Herald, the Edmonton Journal, the Sun chain, the Toronto Star, the London Free Press...

I have all those other choices, yet I still have to pay for the CBC through taxes even if I don't use it. If this dispute gets nasty, I hope Martin gets posessed by the ghost of Reagan: tell them all to go to hell, and privatize the CBC. Then at least I will have a choice whether or not I want to give money to that corporation.

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However, every indistrialised nation has some form of public broadcasting, both television and radio. The mandate of public broadcasters, as others mentioned, is to cover the nation as a whole. The CBC, being funded publicly and the fact that the government is elected by the people, makes the CBC the closest thing we have to independent broadcasting in Canada. "Oh, the CBC always spins things in favour of the government," its critics say. Do you not think that the corporations that own such media outlets like CTV, Global, National Post, the Globe and Mail, and several others influence the coverage in those outlets to suit them?

I remember Peter Mansbridge doing a broadcast from Nunavut a while back. After the regular news segment, he told the story of people living there. There isn't much money to be made off of that, and CTV or Global would never have considered doing that. But does Nunavut's small population make the stories of the residents unimportant? I don't believe so. I believe the stories of northern communities are just as important as anyone else's, and they should have a right to tell their story regardless of whether or not they can get a major news corporation to do so.

On radio alone they've got five national radio stations, plus "regional" services for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, along with local radio stations. Then don't forget the "World Service" which broadcasts 24/7 in English along with 40+ languages

Then there are four national TV networks plus a 24/7 "all news" channel.

And they're much further ahead technologically then the CBC is with digital TV and digital audio broadcasting.

All this financed out of an albeit somewhat draconian "TV licensing fee" where they've still got little trucks that roam around looking for TV's operating from places that haven't paid their licensing fee.

With the CBC its simply two national English and French radio services with a little bit of local/regional programming thrown in, an English and French language national TV network now with virtually no local programming anymore and English and French language 24/7 news channels. "Radio Canada International", our "world service" is a shell of its former self with very little in the way of original programming designed for an overseas audience...most of it is simply relays of CBC-1 programming...and they maybe broadcast in about 12 languages.

The CBC gets its money from a mix of tax dollars and TV advertising revenue. But at least the taxation system is a teeny bit "progressive" and so a little more "fair" than a licensing fee.

The "beeb" was very much the model of what the early CBC founders wanted. But in typical Canadian compromise fashion we ended up with a "hybrid" broadcasting system that's a cross between the British and American systems.

The whole "public/private" broadcasting argument is not new at all in this country. If you look back to the 1920's and the early days of radio the exact same discussions were going on.

[ 22 July 2005: Message edited by: radiorahim ]

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Originally posted by Loren from USA:
I hope they go on strike...and stay on strike.

Unions are for losers.

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Isn't it just about time we gave this guy a one-way ticket out of here?

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Originally posted by josh:
No, because you're an asshole.

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Originally posted by fern hill:
Babblers: don't forget to put 'YO BABBLER' in the subject line of email to audra. I just did.

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I'm always amazed at you morons who seem to think that you can "A-HA!" us with that one. Like we'll all go into a state of stunned silence at the plain and simple wisdom of your words or something.

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Originally posted by josh:
Neither is stupidity.

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Please don't forget the Northern Service. It provides an invaluable - and sometimes life-saving - service to folks in far-flung Northern communities, and broadcasts in several Aboriginal languages.

The US is odd-person-out among industrialised nations in not having a national public broadcaster.

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Originally posted by lagatta:
The US is odd-person-out among industrialised nations in not having a national public broadcaster.

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They have Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio

[ 22 July 2005: Message edited by: Aristotleded24 ]

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Originally posted by bittersweet:
CBC technical crews are notoriously a drag to work with because they're uninspired.

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Really? Do tell! Any particular department you're referring to, Bittersweet? Speaking for the television post side of things, I've yet to run into that mindset. Why? 'Cuz nobody wants to work with someone like that and so they end up working on menial stuff that with no prospects.

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Originally posted by bittersweet:They've got consistent work in an industry where the norm for technicians is going from contract to contract. The latter have to be sharp, and they have to be motivated. With the Ceeb, it's like: Hey, we did that on the Beachcombers, so take a hike. And when's lunch?

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What utter tripe! My experience is that they're by-and-large dedicated individuals who want public broadcasting in this country to compare favourably to anything else on the dial. And they get paid about half the going rate for comparable work done elsewhere.

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Originally posted by bittersweet:I don't want anyone to lose a good livelihood, so I support the union, but I wish some of those guys would just friggin' retire.

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Wanna start the ball rolling? \

And BTW, I'm not a CBC staffer; I'm a freelancer and I can speak with some authority on life inside and outside the CBC.

[ 12 August 2005: Message edited by: Fitz ]

And gee, Michele, by that logic you must let ideology draw your own conclusions. Stretch what you assume to be someone's "logic" to an absurd extreme, and voila, a convenient clash of oppositions without nuance. It's not reality, it's not honest, but at least it reduces anxiety.

I guess I don't understand what the problem is here. People want their jobs to be secure? Why is that a problem? We see their work every day and it's good work. The on air people speak clearly and the people behind the scenes get the cameras in focus and the mics working. They go to city hall meetings and war zones.

* improved leave provisions
* a wellness program aimed at preventing stress and burnout
* broader options in pursuing career paths which allow employees to progress in a way that reflects their personal values and life situations
* more access to alternative work arrangements such as work at home, reduced or compressed work weeks and job-sharing
* an increase in the control employees have over their work by ensuring their involvement in any changes in work methods and practices
* provisions designed to lighten excessive workloads

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Panama Jack: Would listening to the management produced "programming" be akin to crossing the picket line ?

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1. If you're in the habit of listening to the CBC then you better be careful or the withdrawal symptoms might be more severe. Switching to a private brodcaster may expose you to a loathsome helping of advertising, which is often bad for your mental health. I suggest easing away slowly.

2. Besides, the on-air gaffes should be amusing.

3. And it's always good to get to know the enemy and the kind of world the enemy would like to give us. I particularly like studying the euphemisms and other bafflegap that gets used as a fig leaf of "objective" journalism in situations like this. It's educational.

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Originally posted by N.Beltov:

1. If you're in the habit of listening to the CBC then you better be careful or the withdrawal symptoms might be more severe. Switching to a private brodcaster may expose you to a loathsome helping of advertising, which is often bad for your mental health. I suggest easing away slowly.
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And I kept asking the radio, "What are you alternating the programming with - dead air?"

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Originally posted by bittersweet:
So Fitz, you have your experience, I have mine. Mine's in production, yours is in post. But the main difference really, is that you claim my experience is "utter tripe" and that yours has "authority." Do you know how to spell presumptuous? Now all of a sudden you have zero credibility. How'd that happen?

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Mine's in production as well and current as of last Friday. Yours? Sounds like a whine from '93. Hence the utter tripe comment. The CBC's just seen as too easy a target for some to resist and your post came off as one of those.

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Originally posted by bittersweet:
It's not inevitable that a CBC union should mean less motivated or flexible crews than non-union ones. There ought to be a way that job security can inspire rather than discourage. Obviously management is plenty to blame for worker apathy; I think on the whole it's far more to blame than unions.

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Granted.

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Originally posted by bittersweet:
Yet progress necessarily involves a willingness to admit that there may be need of it in the first place. You have to actually value progress over feeling righteous. Taking responsibility, no matter what the other side is doing, is harder than retreating into stale, mutually affirming opposed ideologies.

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Originally posted by bittersweet:
Currently, in-house the CBC is good at news and sports, while independent producers and crews deliver the good dramas and docs.

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Well, some sports. They did a horrible job on the olympics - probably at least an hour of features and interviews for every hour of actual sport, and even then they concentrated on just a few sports, and even then they spent as much time talking with athletes on site as the actual competition. The funny thing was, before the 90's they had good olympic coverage ... when did they decide people tuned in to hear their opinions and interviews rather than the actual sporting events?

[ 17 August 2005: Message edited by: bittersweet ]

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Originally posted by bittersweet:
I dunno Fitz, haven't seen the "hockey doc series." Does it have a name? You didn't mention it, so unless you're being intentionally coy, it seems you're not familiar with it either. Ding!, there goes the credibility thing again.

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Well, you certainly live up to the first half of your nom-d'internet. I wasn't working on it myself so I don't know it's working title off the top of my head. However, when it airs, you'll see the name Jack Walker as editor on at least two of the episodes (of thirteen IIRC).

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Originally posted by bittersweet:
"People's History" was uninspired, formulaic doc making.

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Which pulled-in quite good numbers all-around, not just for a CBC show but against the private broadcasters' offerings in its time slot.

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Originally posted by bittersweet:
IAccording to associates who worked on "Making the Cut,"

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Oh...I get it...a friend of a friend said blah blah blah.
So, what you're saying is that you don't have personal experience in the matter.

And you were saying something about MY credibility?

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Originally posted by bittersweet:
If not, management is surely a big factor in creating that environment. I don't think it's a bad idea that CBC management has to prove themselves to keep their jobs. And that goes beyond maximizing the short-term bottom line. Some of the management at the CBC is fine, they know their stuff, but there's a portion whose major contribution is maintaining their position in a bureaucracy. They've had a long, lackluster run, and I think they should be put out to pasture, preferably NIMBY.

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Won't argue that the CBC is top-heavy with management. However, clearing-out the deadwood among the turf-protectors would take a board that's prepared to do battle on that front and I don't see it happening. Like any large organization, there's too many vested interests who know where the bodies are buried to get much done in a hurry. Better to blame it on the working shmoes.

[ 17 August 2005: Message edited by: Fitz ]

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Originally posted by Fitz: I wasn't working on it myself so I don't know it's working title off the top of my head. However, when it airs, you'll see the name Jack Walker as editor on at least two of the episodes (of thirteen IIRC)... Oh...I get it...a friend of a friend said blah blah blah. So, what you're saying is that you don't have personal experience in the matter.

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The People's History may have had numbers, but it was still as insipid as a doc can be. Too bad, since Canadian history's almost always presented like that.

At any rate, I've worked freelance in above the line tasks for the CBC on various dramatic projects since 1992; I offered somebody else's recent perspective in support of my own experience. As it happens, they're not a third hand party, but hey, they don't know Jack!

The Feds cut back, management focuses on the ever-shrinking bottom line, the "working schmoe" is oppressed, end of story. Well, that's mostly true here. It's also true that permanent status awarded on the basis of seniority is not a system that fosters quality. In fact, I don't think it's any better at fostering quality than a volatile system in which employees have no security at all. Again, I think the problem's mostly out of the workers' control. But if we're going to look at this thing as a system, then we have to accept that any part of the engine can contribute to it not firing on all cylinders. Now, I support the union, and the idea of secure jobs, and I think management's got some real dullards, yet I don't support the notion that the "working schmoes" left at the CBC in the dramatic dept. who've got guaranteed permanent status are also immune from criticism. And I don't think it's beyond the pale to link that status to the pattern of apathy I've experienced, or to resist blaming that flaw entirely on management, the feds, etc.

[ 18 August 2005: Message edited by: bittersweet ]

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We are writing on behalf of the NUJ and BECTU to seek an urgent meeting to discuss the use of BBC material by CBC management during the course of the current dispute at the corporation.

BBC journalists in Canada and Canadian unions allege that the BBC is supplying additional material to CBC which is being used to replace regular news programmes and is thereby taking sides in the industrial dispute and undermining the rights of Canadian media workers.

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Good to see this action! I hope they can get the BBC to stop if what's alleged is true!

[ 18 August 2005: Message edited by: kurichina ]