September 15, 2005: A pause for the moment in the Picket-Size Me blog entries to address something much more important than my waistline. Freelance journalist Noah Richler wrote a very inaccurate and loathsome piece in the Globe and Mail on Wednesday, which you can get to from here.
As president of the Freelance Branch of the Canadian Media Guild, I was outraged and felt obliged to answer. This morning I sent the following reply to Letters To The Editor at the Globe, but I’m not sure if they will print it as a few of my CMG colleagues were less time-zone disadvantaged then I was and had excellent replies printed in the paper today. Anyway, I hope you will read this:
Re: Burst That Union Bubble, Globe, Sept. 14/05
Noah Richler seems to have missed the whole point of what the Canadian Media Guild is fighting for at the bargaining table with CBC management. Contrary to his assertions, the Guild welcomes temporary workers and freelance contributors.
A bit about my credentials. I’ve been a radio journalist in both private radio and at the CBC for the past 22 years. I joined the CBC as a staff announcer/operator, but was forced to leave my staff position to move up the ladder to become a contract show producer. Three years after giving up my staff status, I was unceremoniously ‘non-renewed’ by my manager, as I was no longer the ‘flavour of the month’. Yet I still believe in what the CBC does, and for the past 8 years I have been a ‘flavour’ of another sort, producing and presenting 2-3 segments a week about food as a freelance contributor to the CBC, while also writing about food for a variety of publications.
The Guild ensures that freelance contributors like me are never paid lower than the scales set out in the collective agreement and that there is an opportunity to negotiate overscale amounts as well as copyright ownership. I even sat at the bargaining table during our last negotiations and helped win significant rate increases for freelancers. If I want a Guild staff representative to help me negotiate a contract, or check into rates, or argue about kill fees, I just have to pick up the phone and call for help. For that help I pay the princely sum of just 1.55 per cent of my fees, with a yearly maximum of $1500.00. While Don Cherry says the Guild hasn’t helped him in 23 years of dealing with management, (William Houston, Globe Sept. 13/05) it’s likely he never asked it to negotiate for him either. The Guild would be a lot cheaper than his agent, I’m sure.
As an experienced journalist, I have the confidence and contacts necessary to be a true freelancer who makes his living from the CBC and a variety of other sources. But my younger colleagues aren’t so lucky. They need to start somewhere, and as far as temporary workers are concerned, the Guild never unreasonably withholds permission to hire a temporary worker under a wide variety of scenarios. But when these so-called ‘casual’ workers toil for 3 years or 5 or 10 on a series of contracts they are not ‘casual’ or ‘temporary’ workers. They are people who help make the CBC one of the only truly Canadian voices in the country. Do they not deserve to know where their next paycheque is coming from? Perhaps Mr. Richler doesn’t have to worry about raising children, a mortgage, and car payments. Then again, he got to take three years to complete his two projects; he had an office, no doubt complete with phone, computer and permanent staff to help him out. Sounds like a permanent job to me….
While contract workers in other industries receive a significant premium for their ‘non-staff’ status, the CBC hires many contract workers day to day, week to week, month to month at the lowest pay scales. By not making any commitment, the Corporation loses the very creativity and vitality Mr. Richler claims is lacking, as many of these contract workers are taking their skills elsewhere for better pay and better working conditions. Contrary to his assertions that the Guild’s goal is to defend the already guaranteed jobs of its members, the union is looking to the future, to secure jobs for the bright young minds that deserve to come up through the ranks.
Over the past couple of years, staff representatives and elected officials at the Guild have successfully lobbied management to turn hundreds of these contract workers into staff employees, so Mr. Richler, please don’t tell us the Guild doesn’t represent contract workers and only exacts its dues. Management has presumably made wise decisions in hiring creative workers in the first place. It has at least a year of probation to get rid of them without reason if they’re not working out, but as we are all discovering via numerous ‘unplugged’ broadcasts during the management-staged lockout, these employees are more flexible and creative than ever before.
Freelance contributors and temporary workers are more than welcome in the Guild’s proposals for a collective agreement with the CBC. We just want to make sure they’re treated fairly and are given the chance to make a good living. Creative renewal is also welcome, but not at any price, especially the price of mistreating a future generation of broadcasters.
We now return to our regular programming….thanks to everyone who helped out on the line today in Vancouver with our barbecue, it was a great success. I’ll post on that on Friday.
