John Gushue . . . Dot Dot Dot

The lockout, a year on

Hard to believe, but the CBC lockout began a year ago. I recall waking up early that Monday morning to check on things, and before my computer had even finished booting up, I knew something was off: the early-morning schedule was not following normal suit, in that the usual breakaway from overnight programming that precedes the Morning Show did not kick in.

Sigh.

Actually, a lot of sighs, eight weeks' worth. It ended, and though I blogged a lot about the lockout (mostly something of a clipping service, to be frank) I don't think about it much these days, which is probably good for mental health.

On the up side, I got to know many of my coworkers quite well. That's all of us above, in a shot that Greg Locke took at Cape Spear, to mark the end of the lockout. (That's me raising my arm, at the upper middle.)

I don't blog much about the CBC, either, but I was involved in a discussion the last few weeks that led to this: the CBC Blogging Manifesto. (It's nowhere near as staid as it sounds.) The idea was sparked by Ouimet, the anonymous manager-blogger who is still posting, usually hilariously. A number of other of us have signed on; basically, it's a set of guidelines on how CBC employees should blog. What I've told my colleagues (and supervisors, especially) can be boiled down to this: I don't write anything on the blog that I wouldn't say on the air.

In the meantime, Guy Dixon has this article about the manifesto et al. in today's Globe.

UPDATE (5:45 p.m.): Antonia Zerbisias has this post on her blog today.

ANOTHER UPDATE (5:45 p.m.): My friend Mike and I went out for a break on the sidewalk on Duckworth Street this afternoon. I have to say, it was nice to go back in the building when we wanted.

A lockout legacy

A report out today from Statistics Canada demonstrated what many of us involved in last year's CBC lockout knew: audiences were tuning out. The StatsCan survey on radio listening habits was conducted during much of the period of the lockout, which ended in October. More details are here in today's Daily. A CanWest service report is here. (Incidentally, all of the posts I made during the lockout are still online, through this index. Some of the blogs that flourished through the lockout, though, are gone, which explains the dead links.)

Dear lockout readers

I'm creating this post because I still receive a fair number of visitors each day to the lockout index on this blog ... which is certainly fine. (The index is linked from a variety of other sites.)

If you're one of those readers landing here, welcome. However, I haven't been posting much about the CBC lockout lately, and indeed don't expect to be saying much in anything about it again.

However, feel free to poke around the blog, which is updated regularly. On the upper-right corner, you'll find the latest posts to Dot Dot Dot - click on any that suit your fancy. Among other things, I write a lot about journalism, websites, books, television and a whole bunch of things that are excellent ways to waste your time.

Thanks for coming by. Don't be a stranger.

Ouimet breaks off

Ouimet, the anonymous manager-blogger responsible for the must-read Tea Makers site during the lockout, is going to be taking a break ... sort of. As for the great guessing game, she (we're assuming O's a she) says ...

A lot of people are really curious about my identity, I know. They want to know what department I'm in, or where I fit into the food chain, if they have seen my face crossing the line, if I am made by a committee, or if I am even real. But if you read this all over again it’s obvious that I am real. I was always real, and all you ever got was me trying to tell it straight.

Because the truth is that I could be anybody.

That was the whole point.

Live, from Winnipeg ...

From Locked Out Employee ...

This is the crew in Winnipeg, after voting to ratify their new contract. Nice shot. In St. John's, we're meeting (and voting) today.

[They actually got the idea for this shot after seeing the group shot on this blog of all the folks gathered together on Tuesday morning in Cape Spear. Around in circles ...)

Last of the lockout roundups

Today - Thursday, Oct. 6 - is technically the last day of the CBC lockout. That, of course, assumes ratification of the new contract, voting of which actually continues through Sunday. However, some of the locked-out employees have already been called back in to work as of Friday, although most won't be called back until this coming Tuesday.

This is the last of the roundups of news reports, etc., that I have been filing since the lockout started Aug. 15. It includes some material from the last couple of days, as I've been busy doing some other things (mowing my lawn, realizing the lengthy list of "to do" items is going to remain largely undone next week).

In the papers of late ...

Guy Dixon of the Globe and Mail reports today on some of the mechanics of getting CBC programming back on the air.

But the task of returning the CBC to normal won't be a matter of staff simply going back to work and flipping a switch. Regular programming will take a while to resume, insiders say. The general aim is to have The National back on the air Tuesday or Wednesday with Peter Mansbridge anchoring, although there was no firm confirmation of this yesterday, according to spokesman Jason MacDonald.

CBC Radio's local programming won't return immediately. On Tuesday, Radio One's morning show will be a national broadcast from Montreal, while the afternoon drive-time show will also be national, originating from Toronto. Regular local programming is expected to resume in some cities by Wednesday, with CBC Radio across the rest of the country returning to normal possibly by next Thursday, Mr. MacDonald said.

A Toronto Star report on Wednesday reported that new CBC chair Guy Fournier publicly disagrees with CBC president Robert Rabinovitch's lockout strategy. Fournier gave the interview to the Star shortly after his confirmation hearing before a parliamentary hearing. Excerpts:

Fournier said he doesn't remember all of the details of the meeting, although he came away with the sense that CBC management favoured the lockout option because of concern that the Guild, which already had an overwhelming strike mandate, would go out on the eve of hockey season.

"But it wasn't clear," said Fournier. "What is certain is that there was no meeting in between that time and the lockout, either by telephone or in person, in which management said, `We favour a lockout. What is your opinion?'

"I feel that we should have had at least a conference call before going to a lockout," said Fournier, adding he has made his views known to Frulla.

The article also quotes Heritage Minister Liza Frulla, who has asked for legal advice on whether her office ought to have been informed in advance of the lockout.

Yesterday, Frulla said: "My intention is to review the rules governing the CBC and, if the rules permit me to sit down with the board, I will do so ... I want to know their vision for 2005 — and beyond."

Meanwhile, the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting lobby group has been pressing for new rules in how the president of the CBC is appointed. Here's a link to its news release.

A Graham Fraser report in the Star today follows up on the Fournier-Rabinovitch issue with some political analysis, including chatter on Parliament Hill:

Conservative MP Monte Solberg suggested that the disagreement between Rabinovitch and Fournier was a reflection of a broader problem.

"It will probably require some analysis, and people will have to say `We didn't do this very well, we're going to have to have another look at how we do these things in the future,'" Solberg said.

The Globe's Jeffrey Simpson wrote on Wednesday about politicians who spoke up in favour of expediently restoring CBC programming during the lockout. Simpsons notes politicians have raised funding levels to other Crown departments and agencies, but not the CBC. He does not expect much change in the future:

Would those same throaty politicians now demanding heads on pikes accept a smaller audience in exchange for elevated programming, and be ready as a consequence to substitute more public monies for the foregone private ones?

They have not in the past. Therefore, as they prepare to huff and puff through a lockout post-mortem, they should be asked: Would you commit money in the future?

Globe colleague Kate Taylor pondered Wednesday who won what in the lockout. Some excerpts from her column:

With Liberal MPs baying for Robert Rabinovitch's blood while Toronto morning man Andy Barrie was joyfully slumming it on campus radio, it's not hard to say who won the PR war during the CBC lockout. Hands down, that would be the Canadian Media Guild and the 5,500 broadcasters and technicians it represents. What's more tricky is to determine who got the better deal in the agreement in principle that the two sides hammered out last weekend and that, if ratified by the union members this weekend, will finally end the eight-week lockout. ...

What is new is the agreement to allow a set ratio of contract workers to permanent staff -- and that gives management not just a foot in the door but a leg in the front hall. ...

The truth is that management has done such a feeble job of explaining why they needed the "flexibility" that more contract workers would bring them, it is impossible to judge whether or not they should be happy with the mere 75 or 80 extra contract workers that the 9.5-per-cent cap will currently permit. To outside observers, it looks like a paltry number to have achieved at the expense of a labour disruption that has done as-yet-uncalculated damage to the CBC's relationship with Canadians. Pressed to make their case during the lockout, CBC managers could never cite a single example of a television or radio show where the preponderance of permanent staffers meant they couldn't make the hires they needed. Their argument was entirely hypothetical: In an ever-changing, fast-paced and highly competitive media environment, they argued, they needed to be able hire people for short-term jobs.

'More clout than the average fan'

Chip Martin of the London Free Press reported Wednesday on Labour Minister Joe Fontana, who represents the city in parliament. Fontana conspicuously uses hockey metaphors to describe his role in helping to bring about a resolution to the lockout:

"It was getting down to the overtime period," Fontana said yesterday of the seven- week lockout of 5,000 CBC employees.

"It wasn't going anywhere when I called both sides into the dressing room, my office," he said. "I read them the riot act and told them they needed to put their own personal agendas aside and think of the bigger picture and the public interest."

Editorial symposium

The Toronto Star includes a synopsis of editorials that have appeared across the country about the return of CBC programming. Here's an example:

Montreal Gazette: The CBC is a dinosaur, grazing placidly at the public trough, smugly unaware of the giant meteor of change racing across the media sky. By paying the price in lost audience without winning any real concessions from its high-priced unions, management accepts a return to business as usual. That means the CBC resumes living on borrowed time in this world of pod-casts (sic), satellite radio and general media fragmentation.

[Ed. note: CBC actually launched the first media-based podcast; if the lockout showed anything, employees are keen to dive into the new-media pool.]

Karl's letter, and another view

Karl Wells of CBC Television wrote a response to a column published last Friday in the St. John's Telegram by Brian Jones, the paper's Sunday editor. (Click here for the roundup that clipped the column.) Karl's letter appeared Wednesday on the editorial page. I'm afraid I can't excerpt it - it's not online, and the front section of my copy of the paper has gone wherever five-year-old children put things. The Telegram also published a letter from a Paradise resident who supported Jones' position, and said he disliked CBC Television's coverage locally.

Skewing young, skewering listeners

The Star also publishes a letter from listener Zelda R. Harris of Toronto about CBC Radio's recent programming changes:

I was so pleased to read professor Michael Deturbide's article and I agree wholeheartedly with all his comments. If CBC thinks this kind of puerile programming will entice the young to CBC radio let them think again. We seniors (I am 81 and a retired professor) have been very upset by the "new" type of programming — and have been listening elsewhere. After being a loyal fan of CBC for 60 plus years , I am saddened by my loss. However, the thought that Andy Barrie will soon start my day off again fills me with a tiny bit of hope for the future of that once valuable organization.

Here's a link to the Michael Deturbide op-ed referenced in the above letter. It was published Tuesday. An excerpt:

I don't know why CBC programmers decided to fix what wasn't broken, but I can guess, having sat on the boards of arts organizations that were determined to make their offerings more relevant to young people.

The argument goes something like this: Young people are our future. We need them as our audience, or we risk stagnation. Invariably, the result of this woolly thinking is a less intelligent product that fails to attract a younger demographic and disaffects loyal audiences.

Will audiences return to the CBC? The Toronto Star queried readers; here are some responses.

That's -30-

That's it for the lockout roundups. Thanks for reading. The directory of lockout-related material is here.

As the blogs sign off ...

Ever been in a nightclub at the end of the night when the lights go up? Not always a pretty site. The crowds have gone home, there's a lot of yawning, there's debris on the floor, and a few stragglers are refusing to go home.

That's one of the feelings I've had this week, as the lockout blogs sign off and the locked-out get ready for what we assume will be a return to work. (My bet is that normal programming will return next Wednesday.)

I will be keeping Dot Dot Dot running, of course. I started it in the summer of 2004 as a hobby; over the last two months, the lockout consumed my life, and as a consequence this site was consumed with it, too.

I won't be writing about the lockout much longer, though. I'm looking forward to writing about my usual interests: technology, journalism ('craft singles,' I like to call them, to the confusion of the occasional reader), websites, pop culture, Newfoundland - whatever catches my fancy. (To get a sense of what I mean, click here to see posts from July.) And, as always, I will not be writing about matters of policy or things that involve my work. I held my powder fairly dry about my own opinions about the lockout, too, for the same reasons that I refuse to write about my work-related opinions.

We built a community

One of the reasons why blogs were a phenomenon during the lockout is that we built a community. We linked to each other (and I think we liked each other, too). Traffic mounted continually, and how. My bandwidth has almost burst; I've subscribed to the maximum amount I can buy from TypePad; after four days  this month, I've used up almost 40 per cent of my limit.

Robin Rowland is thinking about a "reunion" - a real one - of the bloggers for later this fall, in Toronto. I'll be there, as will others. It will be nice (and kind of weird) to have a conversation that doesn't involve e-mail, blog postings and comments.

I have to correct a common misapprehension. I've read and heard a lot that the blogs were a clever way for the Guild to run things during this dispute. With all due respect to the Guild, the blogs started independently, and often spontaneously. The union had its message to massage, and we had our own interests. Sometimes they didn't jibe. But I do think that if there were misapprehensions about what we were doing, they disappeared ... the blogs filled an information vacuum that comes with a labour dispute. Within a few weeks, I collected thank-you notes from Guild folk across the country.

I think we all learned one thing: information is a necessity. My wife called my blog a "metablog," meaning I linked heavily to what was being said out there - in newspapers, columns, blogs, etc. I got grief occasionally (four times, to be precise, including one threat to cause me personal harm) for reporting what CBC management said, but I dismiss these anonymous dopes for what they are. Most everyone appreciates that in a time of upheaval, knowledge really is power.

Where now?

This experience taught us all about the power and immediacy of blogging. I think there will be ripple effects - and good ones - once we go inside. As I told an Online News colleague of mine in Toronto yesterday, there is a huge awareness now among our colleagues about the potential (and place) of digital media. Online News is a small cousin in the CBC family, but we're growing. I'm really optimistic about what lies ahead in the months and years to come.

As for the lockout blogs ...

Tod Maffin has unplugged Unplugged. Can you blame him? Todd built CBC Unplugged from scratch, and kept it running through force of will - and a commitment that belies not only what he's made of, but why a great many CBC employees were determined to get through the last seven weeks. Just read the comments section (there are a handful so far, but they'll multiply in number, I'm sure) to get a sense of what Tod has meant to people.

Tod and I have yet to meet in person, but he's an impressive fellow and a good person to chat with by e-mail. I look forward to buying him a beverage some day.

Meanwhile, as for his plans:

As for me, long before the lockout began, I went on a sabbatical of sorts from CBC (I was always on "freelance fixed-term" so it's sort of a long unpaid vacation). I'll continue to do some work here and there, like my technology column and hopefully some guest-hosting (As It Happens producers: I'm available!! ). ...

My goal is to return to CBC Radio in a permanent, full-time job next September, either as a radio producer, host, or somehow involved in recruiting/training new voices.

Someone in CBC, please read that last graf, and make something happen. Find a meaningful role for this guy. (In meantime, Tod's long-running I Love Radio blog is going to continue.)

Hanging up shingles ...

Tessa Sproule, a colleague of mine in the online world (she works for Marketplace's web site), is walking away from her blog. She writes of the peculiar strangeness of a looming ratification ...

It will be even stranger when we step through the doors and enter the building for the first time in two months. We’ll head back to our desks, dust off our keyboards, check on the plants, and wrack our brains for long-forgotten passwords.

Ah, yes, those passwords. This is no joke! I was a good boy and didn't put my passwords (I use quite a few at work) anywhere but in my brain.

CBC Worker Bee has signed off ... and revealed his secret identity, a la Clark Kent: He is Joe Mahoney, who has recorded many of the radio arts & entertainment shows audiences have enjoyed.

Robin Rowland is also going back to normal mode. Hello, Creative Guide to Research.

CBC Drone will be packing it in, after all. (He notes the new collective agreement advises against negative blogging.)

Shoot Both Sides, an anonymous blogger who was as interested in keeping the Canadian Media Guild as accountable as the CBC, has also signed off. 

Justin Beach, though, is sticking around - with plans for a new site about public broadcasting. Stay tuned.

Darryl MacLeod in Halifax is going to stick with the blog thing, but will shift focus. He won't be missing the lockout cookouts.

Yep, a big wind-down all-round. Heck, even Pedro is having a retirement party.

Pictures of a benefit

This is Neil Bishop, a well-known musician for several decades in Newfoundland music. He has also lived much of his adult life in Stephenville, and he performed a wicked acoustic set with Scott Goudie Monday night at the Step Out for Stephenville benefit. That evening raised $15,000 for the Canadian Red Cross appeal for Stephenville flooding victims; Neil played wonderful music, but his words - about the losses that his neighbours have endured, losses that can never be replaced - were haunting and unforgettable.

Ken Cave took this image. A whole gallery of shots are online in a gallery at the St. John's CMG page.

You might also want to look at some pictures Sue Campbell took for the Shelagh Rogers Caravan site of the benefit, as well as this post Shelagh wrote of her visit to Stephenville several days before.

Getting back to normal ...

CBC Unlocked - which, like picket lines across the country, is poised to wind down - reports that CBC employees will begin voting Thursday on a new contract.

There's still no word on when the workers will return to their jobs delivering radio, television and online programming, although betting is high that people working on Hockey Night in Canada will be back right away.

A formal return-to-work protocol should be completed by the end of Tuesday, the union says.

CBC has insisted that it would begin its schedule of Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts on Saturday, regardless of the status of the lockout. However, it has made many signals it would prefer to have all the bells and whistles - and Coach's Corner - in place.

Holding a vote in all locations will be a little tricky; the deal will need to be explained by CMG representatives. It appears likely that many locations (possibly including St. John's) will vote Friday.

Getting the rest of programming back on the air will take a while longer than getting Hockey Night in Canada up on the air. Complicating things is the fact that Monday is the Thanksgiving holiday. As well, newsrooms will need some lead time to gather material for broadcast.

In the news ...

The Globe and Mail reports that MPs are still furious with CBC president Robert Rabinovitch, although less so than before a tentative deal was reached. Excerpts:

"Explain to me why the lockout was necessary," said Gatineau, Que. MP Françoise Boivin, a former management-side labour lawyer.

"If you have the right motivation for asking for certain things and you're really willing to negotiate, why do you need such drastic measures?"

'Time has run out' for Rabinovitch: editorial

The Globe's editorial poses tough questions to Rabinovitch, while also being critical of the Canadian Media Guild itself. It opens:

Time has run out for CBC president Robert Rabinovitch. His failure to communicate a strategic reason for the seven-week-long lockout and to paint a compelling picture of the CBC's future have left him badly positioned. Now that the dispute appears finally to be over, Mr. Rabinovitch has some explaining to do. What was he trying to achieve by precipitating this bitter confrontation with the CBC union? What, if anything, has been gained by it? And where does he intend to take the public broadcaster now that it is over?

In Ottawa, where his shareholders reside, he is a man bereft of supporters. His relationship with the Heritage Minister isn't great. In the Prime Minister's Office, where they think of him as the creation of leading political aide Eddie Goldenberg, a guy who used to play defence for the Chrétien Liberals, he is even more isolated.

A National Post editorial, on the other hand, says Rabinovitch should hold firm:

But the Corporation no longer needs to be all things to all Canadians. Mr. Rabinovitch does not deserve to lose his job over this fall's work stoppage. If anything good comes of the work stoppage it should be that he becomes emboldened to tackle the biggest issue of all: the ongoing purpose and direction of the organization.

Back in the Globe (lot there today), Guy Dixon - who covered the lockout extensively - poses the question, Which lost more: radio or TV?:

Still, there's a lingering sense out there, even within the CBC itself, that radio was doing well and that most of the lockout (with all the debates over contractual versus permanent workers and even the larger relevance of the CBC) had more to do with TV than radio. The CBC morning radio show in Ottawa, for instance, has consistently been top-rated, and Toronto's Metro Morning had shot up to Number One before the lockout. Now radio will have to work to regain that audience.

On the business end o' things ...

Rick Westhead reports in the Toronto Star on the fallout for CBC Television's revenues:

Since the impasse was resolved before the start of the National Hockey League's regular season, the broadcaster, still smarting from the loss of millions of advertising dollars because of the cancellation of last year's NHL season, will probably sidestep any serious financial fallout, marketing executives say.

The end of the line

These photographs were taken this morning at Cape Spear, the most easterly point in North America. Shelagh Rogers - who started a cross-country caravan in Victoria at the end of August - completed her journey to St. John's in early October, coincidentally just as an agreement-in-principle was struck.

Rogers vowed to cross the country as long as the lockout dragged on.

While we were thrilled Shelagh - who was accompanied by producer Sue Campbell - was able to come for a visit, it's sad that the lockout indeed lasted long enough for the caravan to actually make it this far east.

Shelagh told me this morning what the last month has been like; definitely an incredible way to see Canada. I suggested she put a book together, and I'm not kidding.

These photographs are copyright of St. John's photographer Greg Locke, and are used with his permission. (And now, go check out his blog.)

Feel free to click on the images to see larger versions.

Now, that's a smile

Joe Chase, a friend of photographer, Greg Locke, took this picture of Karl Wells and Debbie Cooper this morning. Thanks, Joe!

A night for Stephenville

It was standing-room-only last night at the fundraiser for the Canadian Red Cross' appeal for Stephenville. We crowded into Barkley's - a bar in Mount Pearl (a city just west of St. John's) - and listened to music, laughed, watched moving displays of the damage, and listened to Shelagh Rogers do what she does best.

A state of emergency remains in effect in Stephenville, a week after two rivers flooded their banks after a stunning downfall of rain. Joan Burke, the politician who represents the town in the House of Assembly, told Rogers about how some residents have essentially lost everything they had. On top of the town's pending mill closure later this month, it was the worst kind of news. Neil Bishop, who has lived in the area for three decades, described the plight of many of his neighbours - retirees whose homes will never be able  to be lived in again.

Step Out for Stephenville raised at least $15,000. (That's Karl Wells, above, holding a ceremonial cheque for the occasion. Thanks to Darryn Power for the picture.) The whole event was put together by locked-out CBC workers. If there had been no lockout, I'm sure this kind of event would have still happened - it quite likely would have been on television, just as my colleagues put together the Badger benefit in 2003.

Thanks to all who contributed in some way.

It is not too late to assist. Please contact the Canadian Red Cross for information about its Stephenville appeal.

Reasons to be cheerful

About 20 years ago, I started making mix tapes for my wife, of songs that perked her up and to which I could tap my toes. Happy Boppy Music, she labelled them.

Well, we're playing happy boppy music around the house today. Perhaps a little Ian Dury would be just perfect.

I know: I may be getting ahead of myself. The Canadian Media Guild is being careful in describing the outline of its agreement in principle with the CBC, as announced last night. It has to be approved by the membership. The fine prine then has to be enacted into daily working lives.

But, for now, toe-tappin' tunes are blaring out.

Some things to see and read:

The Canadian Press updated its report through the evening. In it, negotiator Arnold Amber says the clincher - the cap of 9.5 per cent of the workforce for contract employees - came late in the game:

"The most important thing about the tentative agreement - there's a cap of 9.5 per cent of contract workers compared to full-time staff employees," Amber said.

"That's the issue that we went out on, that we were kicked out on, locked out on." ...

The breakthrough came close to a deadline on a news blackout, Amber said. The deadline had been extended several times as talks continued over the weekend.

"One of the mediators came up with a solution that led to the development of this cap process at 9.5 (per cent)," he said. "So that was . . . one of the turning points in the conversation."

Guy Dixon of the Globe and Mail filed a brief report last evening, with a reminder that - as far as Parliament Hill goes - much remains on the agenda:

A number of political observers expect the executives, including CBC president Robert Rabinovitch, to be grilled by the committee on why the lockout was called in the first place. The executives will be asked to explain how they plan to restore the damage that may have been done to the broadcaster's reputation and audience loyalty.

Tod Maffin spoke with Arnold Amber, one of the CMG's negotiators, last evening. Have a listen. (This is the version cleaned up by Sean Prpick, a producer in Regina and the webmaster for Shelagh Rogers' Caravan.)

The CBC issued a statement overnight. It reads, in part:

These last seven weeks have been very difficult for everyone throughout the Corporation, and we will work hard to overcome the challenges that this labour dispute has presented for us – our future as an organization depends on it. We look forward to seeing everyone back at work, doing what they do best: creating and broadcasting exceptional television, radio and online programming for Canadians across the country.

Building on the many successes of CBC Radio, CBC Television and cbc.ca last season, we will be launching a wide array of new programs and content on all our services in the days and weeks to come. Our successes, past and future, are due to the dedication, talent and creativity of everyone who works here – and we are delighted, and more than a little relieved, to welcome all of you back We will provide you with details about returning to work once we have an agreed upon protocol with the CMG.

Getting it back on the air

Do you want to see some pictures of the people who are going to get CBC programming back on the air in St. John's? Click here.

You'll be taken to a slide show on the site for the St. John's local of the CMG, about the construction last Friday of shelters at the TV building for pickets. As it turns out we're not going to need them for the rest of the fall - at least for the lockout. You will see some of the most talented people I've worked with, people like Rod Dobbin (above), Bruce Tilley, Scott Yates, Gary Quigley, Jonathan Crowe ... to name a few. What a team.

These people - to use a bit of a crude expression from around here - can put an arse in a cat.

They're going to get the CBC programs back on the air, and they are - as always - going to do a great job.

Elsewhere in the blogs ..

Pedro the Lockout Gnome (right) was probably not the only one having a drink late last night. 

Dan Misener, who was working as a casual in Windsor before the lockout, is now going to be a casual in Toronto. His post title says it all: "I have no job to go back to."

Matt Watts, who only just recently went to bed, gets the last word in this post, again. (And not because he described me last night as "so unbelievably calming." (Obviously, he's never met me. Kidding. And the Buddha reference was, um, interesting!) Anyway, Matt wrote down his thoughts about being up way, wayyyy too late, like many of us.

Agreement reached

The Canadian Media Guild is poised to reach a firm agreement with the CBC, via a memorandum of agreement. The CMG announced the terms of what is emerging as the basis of a proposed agreement early this morning.

Details are sparse, but what is official can be heard on the CMG hotline at 1-888-591-9129.

(UPDATE at 2:50 am/ 1:20 ET: Text of an announcement has been posted to the CMG bargaining update page.)

The proposed agreement - which still needs to be written into formal contract language before being brought to members as a "deal" - will bring to an end the lockout that began 50 days ago today.

The hotline message does not deal explicitly with this, but I am told that the most contentious issue - the number of new contract positions - will be limited and will be tied to the overall size of the bargaining unit. The statement says strong language has been achieved to protect the full-time workforce.

The contract, if ratified, will last until March 31, 2009. It is retroactive to April 1, 2004.

It includes a $1,000 signing bonus, plus wage increases worth 12.6 per cent over the life of the contract.

I am told that picket lines will be in place Monday, as per usual - at least here in St. John's.

Among the issues to be worked out: a way of getting all 5,500 locked-out workers back on the job in an orderly fashion, and with it a restoration of services.

CBC and CMG negotiators will be meeting with Labour Minister Joe Fontana in the morning.

OK folks - off to bed.

After the deluge

 

Shelagh Rogers posted earlier this evening on her impressions of being in Stephenville. The above shot was taken earlier this week, when flooding overwhelmed the west-coast community. The shot was taken by Doug Greer, who is guiding Rogers and co. across the island.

On Monday night, locked-out CBC employees are putting off a fundraising concert for the Canadian Red Cross' Stephenville appeal. Because of generous donations from municipalities and other donors - the town of Badger, which was covered with icy water in 2003, is among those who have made a commitment - we know that this will be a considerable effort.

If you can come to Barkley's in Mount Pearl on Monday night, please do. Tickets are only $10. Shelagh Rogers is finishing her caravan - which began at the end of August in Victoria - with a stop in St. John's, and will be hosting this event.

Click here for all the details, on the St. John's local page.

While we're waiting ...

A few bits and pieces of lockout-related material this evening, as the so-called Cone of Silence continues in Ottawa (well, Gatineau, to be precise) over negotiations involving the CBC and the Canadian Media Guild.

Mallick cries 'coward'

Heather Mallick's column on Saturday in the Globe and Mail took aim at Prime Minister Paul Martin, whom she describes as a coward:

The reason I know Mr. Martin is a coward is that the damage has already been done. The thread that connects this country, the CBC, has been off the airwaves for seven weeks. Only a coward would have let a gang of Canada-hating bean-counters dribble away a great organization. The BBC defends its journalists. The CBC humiliates every last employee, and all for money, when profit is not the point of the CBC. Keeping Canadians in touch with each other is the reason it was born and the reason it was nurtured until the cowards took over.

Common and Workman

A big issue in the blog world this week has been the fates of David Common and Paul Workman. Workman is CBC's Paris-based correspondent; David Common is poised to succeed him. Why the fuss? Start here with a post that Antonia Zerbisias made on her blog on Friday. Many people - and not just inside the CBC - were surprised (if not shocked) to read the post, which seemed to imply Common was angling during a lockout to fill Workman's boots.

The whole story is more complicated, because the issue of Workman returning to Canada and Common going to France dates back some time. What's striking is this: Zerbisias did not interview the two men at the centre of it.

Robin Rowland has posted on several aspects of this: Common's disclosure that the offer (which he insists is not final) dates back some time; a look at what may be behind the peculiar timing of the leak to Zerbisias; and, strikingly, an e-mail from Paul Workman about learning about all of this from the internet, not from his employer.

I contacted Zerbisias by e-mail, who defends her posting and notes that the facts that she presented in the original post have not been challenged. "I am NOT responsible for the consequences of my post," she wrote to me.

Hoy on CBC: no great loss

I missed this until today: a Sept. 28 column by Clare Hoy that appeared in the Sudbury Star. Hoy, never a CBC lover, took aim at the theory that CBC programming is broadly missed:

Given the egos involved, one suspects that many CBC “stars” felt their would be a public uprising after CBC management – no prize itself – locked them out.

It didn’t happen.

Many people of my acquaintance who regularly tuned into CBC, particularly CBC radio, seem to be surviving without it. It’s rarely mentioned in day-to-day conversations, not a good sign for those who think the country can’t survive without it, or, more to the point, without them.

New, in our self-help section

Aigle de Nuit stretches her wings with some self-help selections for us all. Hilarious. She writes:

About six hours to go until the most recent blackout is lifted and there's only shite on tv.
I though I'd catch up on my reading and perhaps offer a few suggestions for others who are restless and OCD-ing on all of this.

An example is at right. There are many more to have a giggle at her blog, TBC Nights.

OK, you two, take a deep breath ...

I seem to have fallen into bad odour with two bloggers who don't much care for each other: the anonymous employee blog CBC Drone and the anonymous manager blog Tea Makers (aka, Ouimet).

CBC Drone posted this weekend, regarding Ouimet:

I warned you about the management stooge blog. I told you it wasn't what it appeared to be. But a lot of you didn't listen. It annoyed me when I saw some of you sucking up to it. As if Ouimet was really a young woman, bravely speaking her mind. Was really on our side. It horrified me when the great John Gushue himself wrote that he found reading Ouimet was one of the few pleasures of this lockout. Now I think John knows better. I think you all do. The mask has fallen. It stands revealed for what it is. An evil little management blog whose only mission is to try to coopt and divide us.

I had indicated recently that I have, indeed, taken pleasure at reading Ouimet. With all due respect to Drone (who believes he knows who writes Tea Makers), I find some of the Tea Maker posts really funny. And, no, I don't think Tea Makers is a conspiracy, having exchanged some e-mails with the author. (And, no, I don't know who Ouimet is.)

Anyway, I do like Tea Makers ... usually. But the post that ticked Drone off so much that it prompted the above post also bothered me, but for different reasons. He was bothered by Ouimet's comments about picket protocols (and possible repercussions inside); I was more annoyed by assumptions that Ouimet made about my colleague Anne Budgell and the T-shirt she was wearing:

I mean, if I were carried out of here on a stretcher, would this woman cheer?

As I wrote in an e-mail to Ouimet, I don't think that was fair to Anne. She deserves far better than that.

But, in this kind of climate, people feel free to write all sorts of nasty things. Especially when their real names aren't attached.

(On the upside, I was surprised to see Ouimet reinstated the lyrics to the Clash tune Career Opportunities to her banner, on my suggestion. Oooh, influence. And as for the young whippersnapper who posted somewhere - sorry, didn't make a note of exactly where - and complained about middle-aged people who claim they like the Clash ... get this: we fans are middle-aged now. We bought London Calling when it came out, we danced to Should I Stay or Should I Go a few years after that, and now we're in our 40s, whether we like it or not. Sigh.)

So ... can we all play nice for a while?

Mum's the Word ...

The Word, the newsletter distributed to middle managers who have been keeping CBC running, appears to have disappeared, writes Locked Out Employee 100000223 (you'd think I would have remembered all those digits by now, but I have to look them up each time) in Winnipeg.

Eye on ... um ...

I can't help but notice that CBC Eyeball has yet to post for the second time, after soliticing posts from others who wanted to expose "waste and mismanagement" at the CBC. I'm sure there's a story behind the silence; it's just not posted in a public-yet-helpfully-anonymous context.

And a final thought ...

From Matt Watts, who always has such a way with words:

Man... I hope this ends tonight.

I feel like I haven't pooped in seven weeks.

Smoke signals ...

The media blackout involving the CBC and the Canadian Media Guild has been extended a third time, to 12 midnight (Eastern) tonight, according to a message on the CMG hotline (1-888-591-9129).

There's more breaking news from Robin Rowland ...

The mediators working with the CBC and CMG in Hull have apparently told both sides they "want it over by tonight" meaning the current 1800 ET deadline for the end of the news blackout.

CMG officials say there is some progess and "there have been cracks" but management is still sticking to many of their points.

When talks began again after a break early Sunday morning, money was on the table for the first time, a good sign that of progress.

Robin also reports on CMG president Lise Lareau's remarks this afternoon to pickets outside the Broadcast Centre in Toronto:

She warned that some "key issues" still remain to be resolved, but she also commented that mediator Elizabeth MacPherson, director-general of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, who is also a labour lawyer has been "a great deal of help" in sorting out the thorny issues in contract language.

UPDATE: Tod Maffin's latest poll on CBC Unplugged has most respondents picking Oct. 11 (the first day of business after the Thanksgiving holiday) as the most likely day for return to work.

Blackout extended again

The media blackout involving the CBC and the Canadian Media Guild has been extended to 6 p.m. ET.

A message on the CMG hotline (1-888-591-9129) says talks have been slow. The key issues have been been employment status and recall.

The two sides met through the night and are now taking a break. They will resume bargaining at noon ET.

From the Toronto Broadcasting Corp.

Ian Morrison, who speaks on behalf of the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting lobby group, has an op-ed piece in Sunday's Toronto Star arguing for a more stable CBC. Among his comments:

The current lockout has demonstrated what a Toronto Broadcasting Corporation would look like.

This should not be taken as just a witty remark. In 2000, regional television suffered a near-death experience, with a smaller service maintained after public complaint.

Morrison was quoted in Saturday's Ottawa Citizen (a Chris Cobb piece carried across the country) as saying MPs should not follow through on threats to fire CBC president Robert Rabinovitch over the lockout. As noted in Saturday's roundup, Morrison said that would lead to treating the CBC like a state broadcaster, not a public one.

Morrison's piece in today's Star continues:

Of course, the CBC has warts. One of them is an outdated patronage system where its president is appointed by a prime minister. Unlike other corporations, CBC's board cannot hire or fire its CEO.

This may explain the lockout, but it can easily be fixed by Parliament. Two years ago, the House of Commons Heritage Committee unanimously recommended a solution.

On the other hand ...

In what I'm assuming is a companion op-ed piece (hard to tell these things online sometimes), Toronto writer Rondi Adamson says the CBC simply does not warrant public funds, especially in an age with expanding media choices.

Adamson writes:

The CBC does not speak for me and its programming does not reflect my life. As for it being "distinctive," well the CBC is just a squishy BBC. Nothing unique about that.

As for paying for the CBC, Adamson says:

But even if I weren't the type to laugh when a friend of mine calls the CBC "an Al Qaeda cell," I would wish for the privatization of our state broadcaster, on principle.

Why should Canadians be forced to pay for a state network? And yes, I know each Canadian pays only $29 yearly for the CBC.

But I would prefer to choose where my $29 go.

I pay for Animal Planet, MSNBC and Fox News because I watch them. Let the true believers pay for the CBC.

Blackout extended

The news blackout between the CBC and the Canadian Media Guild has been extended for an additional 12 hours, which means it is now scheduled to lift Sunday morning at 6 a.m. ET. The CMG pre-recorded message at 1-888-591-9129 does not add much other detail.

A Broadcast News item is here.

Under the cover of darkness, and other lockout notes

Friends of ours had a baby yesterday - the kind of news I really want to hear at a time like this, and the sort of thing that puts things in perspective. Welcome, Euan ... hope to see you soon.

Blackout continues

The news blackout that was triggered Thursday evening continues. It expires at suppertime (dinnertime, depending on what you call it) this evening.

The Globe and Mail reports in this morning's edition that some MPs in Ottawa are expecting more than just a statement when the blackout lifts.

"If they don't have anything after the blackout, I want back-to-work legislation," Quebec MP Denis Coderre said yesterday. Mr. Coderre said a majority of the Quebec caucus wants the government to intervene because "it's a lockout, it's not a strike."

In addition to Mr. Coderre, Ontario MPs Sarmite Bulte and Don Boudria as well as PEI MP Wayne Easter want the government to intervene immediately. "In rural and remote areas, the CBC is it," Mr. Easter said. "We're not living up to the standards of the 1991 Broadcast Act."

Other Liberal MPs, while slightly more circumspect, have signalled growing impatience with CBC management. Gatineau MP Françoise Boivin, a labour lawyer on the management side before she entered public life, said she thought the lockout was difficult to justify, given that CBC employees had not been engaged in any work to rule or other job action beforehand.

"I'd strongly advise Mr. Rabinovitch not to test the government's patience," she said.

Later on in the Globe yarn, the minister of heritage is queried:

Heritage Minister Liza Frulla, while declining to comment on the negotiations, said pressure is intense on both sides to reach a deal.

"If they're intelligent, they'll prove that they're intelligent and they'll come to an agreement," she said. She played down the likelihood of back-to-work legislation. "It has to be a long-term agreement . . . if it's not dealt with right, it's going to have implications for next year," she said, referring to pending labour talks at Radio-Canada.

Rabinovitch under the gun

Chris Cobb, who covers media for the Ottawa Citizen, has an article in today's Ottawa Citizen (and other papers, including the National Post, from which the above link is taken, and the St. John's Telegram, which carries it in the front section) about CBC president Robert Rabinovitch.

The lead indicates the article won't be clipped and framed for the president's office:

CBC president Robert Rabinovitch could be headed for a major defeat as management and union negotiators close in this weekend on a deal to end a six-week lockout of 5,500 employees.

Another point:

Although CBC board meetings are secret, insiders at the public broadcaster say several board members were unusually critical of the strategy being pursued by Mr. Rabinovitch and his senior vice-president of human resources, George Smith.

Cobb interviewed MPs across the political spectrum and found a common bond: support for getting the CBC back on the air, and quickly.

"I've had a dozen calls a week from people who say they miss CBC radio," said Jim Abbott, the Conservative MP for Kootenay-Columbia in British Columbia. "In my riding it's usually a choice between the CBC and one commercial station. CBC radio has a high value for Canadians and keeps the country connected." Mr. Abbott said he had received no complaints about the absence of regular CBC television programming.

Todd Russell, the Liberal MP for Labrador, said CBC radio is vital to his constituents. "Without CBC it has been much more difficult communicating about important issues. People are feeling cut off from each other. They're telling me they don't know what the hell is going on. We want the CBC back."

An interesting comment from Ian Morrison and the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, who are leery about MPs flexing their muscles. Firing Rabinovitch, he says, will not be welcomed:

"If they try to muscle him out," Mr. Morrison said, "we will be the first to complain. That would be too close to treating the CBC like a state broadcaster. But the lockout will leave him with a lot less freedom of action for the remainder of his term."

Heritage committee's agenda ...

On The Line, the Canadian Media Guild's online magazine, follows up on the heritage committee's plans to call senior management before them, once the lockout ends. The article also notes that Guy Fournier, the newly appointed chair, is scheduled to appear Tuesday, but is not expected to run into trouble with a confirmation.

At the end of the piece, this quote:

One Liberal member of the Heritage Committee told On the Line that having Rabinovitch act as both chair of the board and president of CBC "breaks every rule in the book of governance. Something like this can never happen again."

'Is this what we've become?'

Blayne Paige, a videographer in Ottawa, writes an essay in On The Line about what a succession of labour disputes - but, more importantly, the climate in the CBC - has accomplished. Excerpts:

The other day, one of the locked-out employees was talking to her old friend (who is now a small “m” manager), when someone came up to them and told them that they should not be talking together. I asked myself, “Is this what we’ve become?"

The real conflict is between the CBC (the people on the line) and its senior management. Caught in the middle with no voice is the rest of the CBC, who cross our lines everyday. With the exception of a few, none of us are enjoying our lives or our jobs. When I first started at "Mother Corp.", I couldn’t find you two people who wanted to leave, now I can’t find you two who want to stay. ...

It is time for all of us on both sides of the picket lines to affect real change in the CBC. Not only should we not give in to the current “demands”, we should ensure that this “culture of conflict” ends now, before we find ourselves back in the same predicament in two years.

Recalled

Antonia Zerbisias' blog has a posting about Paul Workman, who refused to file while the lockout continued (foreign correspondents work on separate contracts) and who has evidently been recalled to Canada. The material in Zerbisias' posting is inside-baseball, but since most of the people reading this blog likely know (or know of) all the players, dive in.

Maffin's forecast

Tod Maffin has posted the text of his essay on the future of the CBC. About three weeks ago, I applauded Tod for his essay, which was then produced as a podcast. Tod has since performed it twice for locked-out CBC workers (and posted the audio from each online). The full text is now available for those who prefer to read rather than download-and-listen.

Tod's conclusion, written three weeks ago, holds up:

For all the belly-aching CBC’s senior executive make about how they need flexibility in their workforce, remember this: CURRENT locked-out CBC employees -- in less than three weeks -- have self-organized, learned new technologies like podcasting, set up training programs, tweaked ftp settings, launched interactive web sites, and exploited new technologies to connect with Canadians.

And through it all-- management has one web site. CBCnegotiations.ca.

If the CBC is looking for a flexible workforce, they don’t have to hire outside. They just have to unlock the doors.

'Just another group of fatted civil servants'

The Telegram, the daily newspaper in St. John's, has written editorials calling for an end to the CBC lockout and the resumption of full services. Brian Jones, the Tely's Sunday editor and columnist in its Friday edition, does not see any benefit to the lockout ending. Excerpts from his column (please note: this link will likely lead to another column next Friday):

I’ll let you in on a little trade secret. The CBC obtains some of its “scoops” from newspapers. Toss a handful of pens across any given newspaper newsroom, and you’re bound to hit a busload of reporters who have had the unpleasant experience of hearing their stories read — sometimes almost verbatim, and usually without attribution — over the CBC’s airwaves ...

By stressing the rights of full-time employees with full benefits over the rights and needs of freelancers, CBC journalists are revealing themselves to be just another group of fatted civil servants whining and complaining about the possibility of losing their privileged feeding spot at the public trough.

My understanding is that The Telegram has been collecting examples of outright plagiarism - but involving another broadcaster. Perhaps Mr. Jones should bring his evidence to Telegram senior management.

Web notes

Ivor Tossell, who writes on websites for the Globe and Mail's online site, applauds what locked-out CBC employees have been doing on the web since the lockout started.

In the weeks since the lockout began, CBC workers have achieved the next best thing to saturation coverage of themselves on-line. (The Internet, being more or less infinite, is impossible to saturate.) There are at least 53 individual blogs about the lockout, which feed a handful of very professional top-level websites. CBContheline.ca is a good source of updates on the lockout negotiations, and CBCUnplugged.com is still going strong as a source of links and multimedia.

Strike that thought

Eleanor Wachtel, the locked-out host of Writers & Company, has the guest column in the Three For Thought series in the Globe and Mail's book section today. (The series involves a retrospective look at three not-necessarily-recent books linked by a theme.) Wachtel's topic: labour relations.

In her introduction, she writes:

"No one wins a strike" is the refrain of one of the novels I've chosen, and an ineluctable theme of this literature is that although no one wins, some lose more than others.

Of musk and meth

A colleague based in Toronto chipped this in to the mailbag yesterday:

I don't know how you find the time to keep it updated, and with commentary, but kudos to you. I'm assuming you either have the stamina of a musk ox or a big crystal meth lab at home...

The photo above, from this morning's Dot Dot Dot story meeting, should answer the question.

Unlocked: not quite unplugged

I'm completely revising a post about the status of CBC Unlocked; I had made enquiries about Unlocked, following Antonia Zerbisias' post last night:

Speaking of the web, I'm told that the very fine worker-driven news site CBC Unlocked is coming down this weekend. That's because too many of the people involved have had to find part-time work, in addition to doing picket duty for their $200 or so a week, to pay their bills and feed their kids. Too bad. It was one of many innovations launched by the locked-out workers that proved how they are CBC, not the managers now inside.

I was told by someone I trust that Unlocked was indeed winding down. I received an e-mail this evening indicating that Unlocked is on rocky ground, in terms of human resources (they're exhausted), but that publishing is planned for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Beyond that is uncertain. 

Unlocked has received support from the locked-out - I have been a contributor. I hope it can keep running as long as necessary.

Efford responds ...

The office of John Efford, Newfoundland and Labrador's cabinet representative, responded this morning to an e-mail from Peter Gullage, the locked-out national television reporter in this province. Gullage had sent an automated note from the St. John's CMG local web site.
Here is Efford's reply:

I would like to thank you for your letter dated September 26, 2005, concerning the CBC lockout. My colleague, the Minister of Labour and Housing Joe Fontana attended a meeting on Sept 26, 2005 with Robert Rabinovitch, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Arnold Amber, President of the CBC Branch of the Canadian Media Guild. This meeting was held to discuss the status of their negotiations and to develop a plan to bring these negotiations to a successful conclusion.

The employer and the union have a responsibility to the Canadian public to resume normal broadcast operations as soon as possible. We are confident that with willingness to be flexible and with more hard work, the parties will be able to reach a settlement without further delay.

Thank you for taking the time to address this important matter.

Sincerely,

R. John Efford, P.C., M.P.

Anne outwits, outplays, outlasts ...

Anne Budgell models this week's hit in lockout fashions.

Tick-tock, lips locked (and other lockout notes)

For a 48-hour period that began Thursday evening, the CBC and the Canadian Media Guild will conduct negotiations under a news blackout. Here's a recap from last evening of their parting shots, which were certainly not, um, palsy-walsy.

Labour Minister Joe Fontana told The Toronto Star's Graham Fraser he hasn't been impressed with what he has seen coming from both sides:

Labour Minister Joe Fontana yesterday criticized both sides in the CBC lockout, saying they are spending more energy trying to convince the public of their position than trying to reach an agreement.

"They're both in a public relations battle, but the public relations they need to build is between themselves," he told the Toronto Star yesterday. "Not trying to convince third parties of what they are trying to accomplish, but trying to convince each other of what a good, fair and equitable collective agreement would look like."

The Star article notes that Fontana is receiving hourly reports on the negotiations in Ottawa, which began under his department's supervision on Monday.

The Globe and Mail treatment today has more detail and colour:

Describing the negotiating room shortly before the news blackout, Arnold Amber, president of the guild's CBC branch and its main negotiator, said the mood in the room has been mixed. It is sometimes combative, sometimes funny, but not an Ottawa version of 12 Angry Men.

"There's ample use of charts, and people go up and write concepts on the board and erase it. There's a lot of thinking and talking," Mr. Amber said, which suggests the government mediator is not imposing a rigid format for discussions.

The Globe piece also notes rising political pressure, particularly in the backbenches:

On Monday, according to Liberal sources, Mr. Fontana read both sides "the riot act," and demanded that they sit and talk until they struck a deal. Several MPs praised Mr. Fontana's initiative in forcing the two sides together.

But yesterday, particularly in the Quebec caucus and in rural ridings where the CBC is a main source of news and entertainment, patience was running out.

"We've all reached that point: It's time to kick butt and force an end to it," said Ontario Liberal MP Don Boudria. "We must take drastic steps, and we must do it now."

Step Out for Stephenville reminder

All of today's notes are important, but I want to remind readers - especially those in the St. John's area - to make an effort to get to the Step Out for Stephenville fundraiser that locked-out CBC employees are organizing for Monday evening, with host Shelagh Rogers and some incredible musical talent. Ten bucks for that crowd is a bargain on any night, let alone for such a good cause.

I posted on this last night; to see all the complete details, please see the page at the St. John's CMG site.

Thanks to Rob Bruce for the image above; please see the galleries on his page for a visual sense of why this fundraiser matters. Proceeds are going to the Red Cross Stephenville Appeal.

Now ... back to normal mode ...

Come on-a my House

The Globe piece also concludes with a note that the parliamentary heritage committee will call CBC president Robert Rabinovitch to appear before it, once the lockout ends. Tod Maffin quotes an unnamed source on the heritage commitee saying the top four executives at the CBC (not just the president) will be called to appear. Matt Watts has a humourous take on that. To recap, a CBC Unlocked report from Tuesday on precisely what was said when the heritage committee met this week.

Read up on your young (and future) audience

I sound like a broken record to some of my colleagues about this, but young people do pay attention to the media - they just don't get their news the way their folks do. Robin Rowland has a post everyone should read, with implications for content, delivery, etc.

'CBC loses out in lockout': Sun papers

Entertainment columnist Bill Brioux of Sun Media opens today's notebook with comments on what he (and the rest of the country) won't and will be watching:

Tonight was supposed to be the season premiere of the Royal Canadian Air Farce. But instead of watching Jessica Holmes goof on the new Governor General, the few dozen viewers still loyal to locked-out CBC will have to make do with a 20-year-old Goldie Hawn movie. Your tax dollars at work.

Profiting big time from CBC's woes is CTV, which saw last week's debut of Ghost Whisperer (1.4 million viewers) and the return of Nip/Tuck (one million) soar on Friday nights.

It gets worse for CBC. Tuesday was supposed to mark the return of Rick Mercer's Report. And two weeks later, Da Vinci's City Hall. When they finally do emerge (January?), viewers will already be locked into Global's solid starter Bones and CTV's Close to Home (premiering this Tuesday).

Through a glass (wall), darkly

Anonymous blogger August West, writing on Wednesday about a concert in Simcoe Park, considers what might be considered when all this is over:

Mr. Mansbridge, acting as emcee for the show, made a comment that probably hit home with many people. He said that, at some point in the future, we'll be back at work inside the Broadcast Centre and we'll happen to glance out and see The Park and remember that we've all been involved with something quite amazing for the past six weeks plus.

Where's the strategy?: blogger

Eric Eggertson, a communications professional who blogs on public relations and other issues, is stumped about the CBC's communications strategy. He does not that his interest in this goes beyond professional curiosity: his wife is among the locked-out.

While the 5,500 locked out workers are not all journalists, CBC is by and large, a community shaped by journalistic values. At the forefront of these is a profound distrust of authority's double-speak, and an endless hunger to find the truth beneath it. Yet in discussing the corporation's future, management tries to deluge its audience with staged meetings, rhetoric-heavy memos, pompous e-mails and news releases when the one thing employees would pay attention to is plain talk.

A review of management's missives shows a remarkable lack of vision, lack of subtlety and lack of openness. How do they hope to engage a group of aggressive, ever-questioning knowledge workers in the complex business of reflecting Canada to Canadians and the world when they can't clearly and simply reflect the organization's role to their employees?

Actually come to think of it, that's management's second problem. Their first problem is that no communication, however eloquent,can speak louder than that initial action of locking out people who view their work not just as a job, but in many cases, a vocation, and a service to their country. The locked out CBC workers are more than foot-sore and poorer by seven weeks' pay. They are insulted. Furious. And, judging by the outpouring of podcasts, blogs, and personal messages from the picket line, heart-sick.

Blogs, revisited

Another external view: Blogger Ralph Brandi surveyed the blogs covering the CBC lockout (including this one). I think this is fair comment:

I haven't seen a whole lot of discussion within the blogosphere about how the locked out workers have taken to blogging. I'm not even sure how much good its done them in getting their message out; most of the comments on the blogs seem to come from fellow locked out workers. So it may be that the most important aspect of the blogging of the lockout of '05 was in creating and sustaining the community of workers, rather than in propgating the workers' take on what was happening to the Canadian public at large.

Autumn chill

We had temporary shelters (tents, really) at the two TV gates for the first few weeks of the lockout; they didn't last as long as we would have liked (especially on rainy days). Because CBC Radio fronts on a sidewalk on Duckworth Street, there's no room there for a shelter at all.

New shelters have been made, which is helpful for the days we've had where temperatures have plunged, the winds have picked up and the skies have let it rip with rain. Yep, it's a picnic out there.

CBC Worker Bee has these thoughts about another common sight on picket lines: fire barrels.

It's starting to get a little chilly at night, and I've heard some people talking about setting up those old oil barrels around the Broadcast Centre. For the love of God, don't do it!

Click on this link for his reasons.

Bits, pieces

From the Halifax Chronicle-Herald (full text behind subscriber wall):

It was like a 12-step program for those who miss the CBC. About 40 people gathered at the Baddeck courthouse Thursday to commiserate about the loss of local, national and international programming on CBC radio and television stations. Similar simultaneous protests were held in Sydney, Glace Bay, North Sydney, Inverness, Cheticamp and Isle Madame.

The image at right comes from the CMG Halifax page, which quotes graphic designer Thomas Miko: "I miss you and hope that things get worked out for you favourably and soon. You have my support and best wishes."

Nancy Russell in Charlottetown passes on notes from a recovering casual.

CBC Drone goes underground - literally - to check out a rumour that some CBC managers have been sneaking into the Broadcast Centre via an adjacent underground mall. And he found out some have been occupying their time: shopping!

In Winnipeg, Locked Out Employee writes on how colleagues are using the coming hockey season to get the public's attention, and started off with a good activity for any day of the year: street hockey.

From the Varsity, the student newspaper at the University of Toronto:

For decades, the CBC has been the vehicle for transmitting the many variations of that culture from sea unto sea-without it, could Newfoundlanders experience what it's like to work as a logger in B.C., or Torontonians ever hope to understand the labour woes of small-town Quebec? In a nation too often plagued by a lack of regional interaction at the political level, the CBC facilitates dialogue and fosters understanding between Canada's disparate citizens.

From Matt Watts, a witty but pointed comment on how contributors to the CBC (he's been working on a comedy for CBC Radio) have had their income hurt:

I'm not part of the CMG, but I have do a contract with the CBC.
That means that I don't get strike pay.
I'd picket.
For $300, I'd picket nude.