Compare and Contrast

From the Brock Press

"A poll done by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) during the 2004 Athens Olympics overwhelmingly supported the opinion that amateur athletes proved their worth by doing what they had never done before, and whether that be improving a 10th of a second, jumping 10 centimetres more, or finally defeating that arch-nemesis, that's what counted."

From the latest Management mailing

"Imagine a world where an employee isn't qualified to do a job that they are redeployed to through a workforce adjustment"

Imagine a world where an Olympic athlete isn't alowed to compete unless they win a medal in their first try.

CBC Online News Returning – Kind of

Across Canada locked out CBC Journalists, with a passion for journalism and a commitment to keeping the public informed have been working hard, putting together makeshift news rooms wherever they can find the space with whatever equipment they can beg or borrow. The result is CBC Unplugged. According to Mark O'Neill, from the CBCU Steering Committee "The CBCUnlocked.ca website WILL be soft launching on Tuesday, Sept 6; if that goes well the public launch will be the following day. The site is national in scope..."

CBC Unlocked is not endorsed by or affiliated to the Canadian Media Guild or the Canadian Broadcasting corporation. It is being established as a Canadian news website, and will adhere to appropriate standards and practices. According to O'Neil "Editors will be looking for a range of material: news-of-the-day, current affairs, commentary, A&E features, sports...and anything else anyone thinks up." It is not the intent for this to be a site to cover the CBC lockout, or as a propaganda site for either side.

Please let your contacts, mps, government offices, other government officials the general public and anyone else you can think of know what is going on. There have been some problems reported in attempts at news gathering. CBC Unlocked is about providing Canadian News to Canadians, not about the lockout, and not about taking sides in the lockout.

another way to communicate

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cbclockout/

This is a yahoo message board, and you can choose to view it online only, have each messaged delivered to your mailbox, or get all of a days messages in a daily digest form.

For members of CMG, as well as supporters of the locked out CBC employees to discuss news and events surrounding the lockout.

Please distribute widely. Membership requires approval. Managment might find a way in but this at least makes it a little harder.

Breaking News

Everyone who is anyone simply must read Locked Out Employee 100000223's blog. It seems that contrary to their original statment managers are actually encouraged to visit the line, chat with their friends, hang out, buy us a beer, etc.,

Sun Tzu They Ain't

Sun Tzu's the Art of War is considered the ultimate philosophic treatis on warfare, and I thought that it was required reading at most business schools and for everyone who seeks position's of executive management. Apparently I was wrong.

CBC's senior management, in preparing for this lockout, apparently had extensive 'contingency plans' in place. With the way modern management works it probably took a year or more of planning to get from 'forming a committee, to examine what possible committees might be needed in order to for the committee to draft a plan' to actually having the plan in place.

After 15 months of negotiations, but with those negotiations still going on, CBC moved to implement their plan and locked out employees. That was apparently the extent of the plan, to lock the doors and wait for employees to run out of money. For added measure though they stopped topping up the benefits of their employees who were out on maternity leave. The expected reaction, from what I can gather, was for employees to walk quietly around CBC buildings waiting to run out of money.

It apparently never occurred to them that pissing off 5,500 of the most talented, creative and experienced media professionals in the country and then giving them alot of free time might result in the counter attack that has been launched via the web. It apparently never occurred to them that locked out employees would seek political remedies and go after the CBC's sources of funding and content.

While they seemed to have planned poorly for winning the battle they also seem to have done everything they could to avoid winning the peace. The well publicized memo to managers

However, there should be no other managers or other non-CMG staff visiting the line, nor should there be any attempts to "improve the mood" on the line, by providing food or drink, for example. It's very important, if there is a lock-out, that we bring a quick resolution to the work stoppage. A quick resolution will be helped by picketers focussing on the reality of their situation. Making things more comfortable for the picketers does not support this goal.

Thanks

Fred and Krista

Senior Management seems oblivious to the fact that supervisors and staff will have to work together again one day, and instead strove for the appearance of unity.

Senior management is also trying to maintain the appearance of fulfilling the mandate of the CBC

"...the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, as the national public broadcaster, should provide radio and television services incorporating a wide range of programming that informs, enlightens and entertains; ...the programming provided by the Corporation should:
be predominantly and distinctively Canadian,

After 15 months of planning senior management apparently feels that they can provide informative, enlightening, and entertaining "distinctively Canadian" programming with British news, American movies, pantomime football, and the Antiques Roadshow.

Meanwhile the employees Senior Management locked out are taking to the airwaves on campus radio, pod-casting and will launch a Canadian news service at cbcunlocked.ca sometime next week - even while they aren't being paid. (There is no doubt left about who understands the spirit, and the mandate of public broadcasting.)

Finally I should mention that while the locked out CMG members have received enormous support from across Canada, from other unions, from business, from the media, from the public, from public interest groups and politicians - management has secured the support of no one, with the exception of those people who want the CBC to be killed off altogether.

To sum up. Management's carefully laid contingency plan came out of the door and blew up in their face. The staff it locked out has energized not only their own union, but other unions in a wide variety of fields. Locked out CBC staff have made innovative use of the internet and other media and introduced new attack strategies to the labour movement. Ultimately other employers and managers will pay the price for the collapse of this plan.

This plan is apparently part of a larger "vision" for the future of the CBC but, and to get to the point of all of this revisitation; given the success of stage 1 of their plan, do Canadians really trust these people to plan the future of public broadcasting?

Lockout MP3s

I'm not even sure how many people read this, but as I don't have alot new to say tonight, I'd like to list my top 4 walking songs (the ones in the heaviest rotation on my mp3 player - I would have done top 5 but only 4 have survived into the 3rd week) through this and invite anyone else reading along to do the same if only to give me ideas when I reload it next time.
My apologies, but the links are only to lyrics - anything else would probably be illegal.

Float On by Modest Mouse
Park Life by Blur
Sitting, Waiting, Wishing by Jack Johnson
Canadian Dream by Sam Roberts

Went out on the street today
The Canadian Dream was as far away as it’s ever been
As it’s ever been

Anyone else?

The More Things Change?

So CMG and the CBC are back at that table. Hopefully this is a good sign, but they were at the table for 15 months before the lockout without getting a deal done so I think the appropriate reaction is something like 'guarded optomism'. At the same time this announcement was being made people began receiving a package from Management outlining their position. Somehow I don't think that a slick, expensive printed version of the Management Web Site is going to sell anyone on anything and in keeping with upper Managment's run of bad ideas, bad timing, and general bad timing Locked Out Employee 100000223 has obtained some internal Managment emails that do not paint a pretty picture.

However, there should be no other managers or other non-CMG staff visiting the line, nor should there be any attempts to "improve the mood" on the line, by providing food or drink, for example. It's very important, if there is a lock-out, that we bring a quick resolution to the work stoppage. A quick resolution will be helped by picketers focussing on the reality of their situation. Making things more comfortable for the picketers does not support this goal.

So, all and all, has anything really changed? Yes, today it's raining.

Day 15: No way out but forward

The Tea Makers seems to have turned into a "why there is no point in resisting" blog.

"People are wondering how long management is willing to "let this last." Well, I've laid my hands on the contingency plan and it goes on for days and days and weeks and months. You would be surprised.

I'm not going to lie to you: pending a miracle, this is going to be long. It's going to be brutal. And we're going to be pretty beat up by the time it is done.

But the way out will not be through the government or the internet or the newspaper or a bottom-feeding politician or Ouimet or the ipod - it's going to be through the bargaining table. Everything else is just chatter, noise, and white light. As time goes on I get the sinking feeling that this noise is doing more harm than good, and if I'm being honest with myself, this web site looks more and more like part of the problem than part of the solution."

The reality is that people on the inside and people on the outside are getting different messages, surrounded by different people, and in most respects living in different worlds at the moment. It's been suggested that her purpose is to break down morale. I kind of doubt this is the case but, regardless of her comments there is no way out but forward.

The lockout could be over in a day or two if we were willing to just let managment have whatever they want. It may be true that the "the way out will not be through the government, or the internet, or the newspaper ..." but all of these things have an impact, public and government opinion will weigh on the outcome and the stronger the union is going into negotiations the better the deal we will end up with, turning on or subverting the union at this point won't change anything, it won't speed anything up, it will just result in a worse deal if CMG is forced to negotiate from a position of weakness. So, keep fighting, keep walking, and blogging and talking to people and doing everything you're doing - then start doing the new things that you've thought of. The situation is what it is, the only thing left to determine is whether what kind of jobs we'll come back to when it's over.

P.S. I'd also like to point out, as an adendum to yesterday's post. Friends of the CBC represents 60,000 households with a budget (of entirely voluntary donations) of apporx. 2 million anually. I'm not sure how CBCWatch stacks up, but it would be interesting to know.

To the CBC's detractors

I am still reading quite a bit of general CBC bashing out there. Perhaps I am reading in the wrong places. At any rate, I have to keep reminding myself, and would like to remind everyone else that this is a minority position. People right across the political spectrum have sent messages of support to the people on the line, and have called to complain to their MPs about the loss of service.

Ideally what I would like to see is a box on tax forms that says “I would like to give ___ a month of my federal taxes to the CBC” (not a tax increase, just a portion of your existing taxes.) Possible answers would range from $0 a month to $20 a month. Then the people with the big hate on for CBC could write in 0 and gloat about it to their friends all year – they would also give up their right to whine. I suggest this because I am positive that if it happened the amount of revenue the CBC would receive would increase dramatically.

These people whine on constantly about how they have to pay for the CBC (which costs them a little over $2.50 a month on average). But they are a very vocal minority and probably support many government programs that I wouldn’t pay for if I had a choice. Just remember for every one of these people, there are many, many people who support the public broadcasting in general, and the CBC specifically.

For example: http://www.friends.ca/