Shame!

I know I’m a couple days late, butlet me know if I heard this wrong:

There was a rally in Simcoe Park (next to the CBC) the other day.

Stursberg comes out to listen.

Hot ‘n’ Spicy union members point their fingers and chant “Shame! Shame! Shame!”

Stursberg beats a hasty retreat back in to the building.

Medium ‘n’ Mild (younger) union members look at each other and say: WTF?

I don’t know much about mobs and union rallies, I admit. But next time we send out our old fat guy to talk to your old fat guy, let them hash it out.

17 Comments

  • Anonymous says:

    I wouldn’t worry too much about it… of the staff at TVOntario who are represented by the Guild, almost 100 per cent are temporary contract staff who have to beg for their jobs back at the beginning of every season. So if you’re looking to the Guild to protect your job, think again.

  • Anonymous says:

    Does Stursberg think none of us noticed when the entire PR department was let go? Yeah, sure Richard, we really believe you mean it when you say all permanent jobs are safe!

  • cbc mama says:

    Joe, my jaw dropped when I read what you’d heard Stursberg saying when he foolishly dropped in on the rally earlier this week. I cannot believe he still has the misguided gall to keep repeating that old nugget about our permanent jobs being safe and that his contracting out plan only affects future hires.
    His position is insulting for several big reasons: first it assumes we’re all a bunch of morons who can’t see that this is the thin edge of the wedge and that it will erode our hard-won rights with each successive round of negotiations.
    Second, it assumes we all care only about ourselves and not the future of the CBC/public broadcasting not to mention the next generation of journalism grads.
    He obviously thinks we all just fell off the turnip truck and that pisses me off.

  • Anonymous says:

    The debate over whether some of these blogs are real should remind us all to take all these blogs with a grain of salt. Or to borrow another old cliche believe half of what you see and nothing you hear.
    I know we’re all desperate for any piece of information or action that will end this whole thing but we have to be careful not to lose our objectivity.

  • Anonymous says:

    well, have you been told to forget vacation? and have you heard a rumour about a big announcement? no matter what the difference in jobs, the rumours should be pretty much the same on the inside.

  • Anonymous says:

    Well, you’re on the inside, as this blogger purports to be. What do you think? Does it sound familar…or fake? You tell us.

  • Ouimet says:

    re: http://quietlytyping.blogspot.com/

    This may sound funny coming from me, but am I the only one who thinks this reads like a fake?

  • Anonymous says:

    Your fat guy WAS invited to come up and say his piece. He declined.

  • Anonymous says:

    Looks like another manager has entered the building.

    http://quietlytyping.blogspot.com/

  • Nevada says:

    From the Locked out by the CBC site
    http://www.artsnews.ca/LinkedFiles/CBCblog-AugustWest.html

    Posted on Thursday, August 25, 2005

    Day Ten: Wednesday

    An Open Letter to the Insiders:

    We have been living with this absurd lock-out for ten days now and I think it is time for The
    Insiders and The Outsiders to start communicating. We will never win this battle to regain
    control of the CBC unless we fight this battle together.

    This is not a battle of us versus you. This is a battle of all CBC workers against a man whose
    vision for the future of the CBC will destroy it as surely as our collective vision can save it.

    To that end, I think it is time for The Insiders to join us in taking a stand.

    I am not suggesting that you do or say anything that will cost you your job. We know
    -all-too-well- how precarious jobs are within the CBC at the moment. That is why we are
    walking the picket line. We would no sooner ask you to put your jobs in jeopardy than we
    would our own.

    But there must be some ways we can fight this battle on common ground.

    Perhaps you can begin by walking through the front door instead of sneaking in through the
    back door. Do your few minutes wait and show your support for your co-workers who are
    walking the picket line.

    Leave the building at lunch time and do another quick wait to get back inside the building. Why
    should you miss the last few days of summer while we are basking in the sunshine? Well,
    perhaps not quite basking.

    But honestly, if you feel like you are being held captive in that building, then you are being
    held captive in that building. Does anyone have the right to make you feel that way?

    Write to your MPs and MPPs and tell them you’ve seen the mess from the inside and you’re
    mad as hell and you’re not going to take it anymore.

    Write to Martin and tell him what you’ve seen and tell him to stand up for a Canadian
    institution.

    Write to the advertisers who are sponsoring the programs and tell them that you are being
    forced to create programs at the threat of losing your jobs.

    It is a time to be proud and united. It is not a time for any of us to cower and hope for a magic
    solution to this problem.

    We are in control of our own destiny. He is not.

    We will one day regain control of the CBC. He will not.

    Posted on Wednesday, August 24, 2005

    Day Nine: Tuesday

    Today was the first truly extraordinary day on the picket-line.

    The National President of the CAW, Buzz Hargrove, made an appearance outside the
    Broadcast Centre in Toronto and gave a wonderful speech, encouraging all of us to keep
    fighting the good fight.

    Hargrove is a class act, there’s no doubt about that.

    Less classy was an unannounced and unexpected walk-about -straight from his limo, by some
    accounts- from Richard Stursberg, who was suddenly found hiding in the shadows while
    Hargrove addressed members.

    Amid calls to join the gang at the microphone to address the large crowd, Stursberg tried to
    beat a hasty retreat, only to find that the door in question was locked.

    He walked quickly to the nearest exit, his tail firmly between his legs, literally chased back into
    the building amid a chorus of “shame shame shame.”

    It is difficult to put into words the anger, contempt and even hatred that some CMG members
    feel for this man. As he stood watching the proceedings, hundreds of eyes turned to face him,
    all saying a variation of the same theme: You have, without just cause or justification, taken
    away my right as a CBC employee to receive a paycheque, to buy food for my family, to pay
    for my children’s education in just a couple weeks…

    Is it possible that Stursberg waited one day too long to adopt a conciliatory posture? Could it be
    that his absurd, self-righteous and arrogant appearance today -was it a desperate attempt to
    upstage Hargrove?- has galvanized the members in a way that neither Layton, Amber or
    Hargrove have managed to do?

    Time will tell, but anyone who witnessed his retreat today will proudly tell you that by the time
    he reached the safety of his sanctuary, the emperor could be seen to have abandoned his
    traditional sneer.

    And not a moment too soon.

    “Open the door, Richard
    I heard it said before
    Open the door, Richard
    I heard it said before
    But I ain’t gonna hear it said no more…”

  • streetwalker says:

    Ouimet,

    I’m not sure. Your anonymity protects your job, but it also poses a problem if you want to get involved.

    Call the Guild office (416-548-8431), and ask to speak to the people in charge of the site. I would ask for a CBC news person, since they would have experience dealing with confidential sources.

    Explain your situation and take it from there. If you are what you appear to be, you may be able to help end this madness.

  • Ouimet says:

    streetwalker – nice site, and one I have not seen before. Do you think they are looking for submissions from non-CMG people? Would they take me?

    joe – thanks for the report.

  • Joe Visionary says:

    I was close to that action. Here’s what I saw.

    I was doing my tour around the TPC. I sat down in Simcoe Park while Terry Walker, Arnold Amber, and Buzz Hargrove were giving speeches.

    As Arnold spoke, I watched with some amazement as Richard Stursberg walked south from Wellington toward the rally.

    He stopped to talk to two guys. He chatted them up. It occurred to me to listen in, but I couldn’t imagine anything coming from him that was anything other than the corporate line.

    Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me and I walked over. By that time, a french woman was getting into a more animated conversation with him, and Mr. Stursberg decided it was time to continue south, past the rally.

    I asked one of them what he had been talking about, and he told me that Mr. Stursberg was reassuring them that the permanent staff have nothing to fear from the proposed contract, we would not see any contracting out that would affect us.

    We all marvelled at how he either had more nerve than a toothache to stroll into a union rally that is all too well aware of his part in the lock-out, or he was painfully naive.

    As he continued south, eventually all of the rally and the speakers realized who he was, and summarily booed him.

    Later that day, I was handed an informational flyer that expained how, through attrition and more lay-offs, the number of temps, casuals, and contracts would eventually number greater than the permanent membership. When that happens, and a lousier contract is presented, the temps/casuals/contracts will do as their employer says, and not as the union recommends.

    That’s how we get our legs cut from underneath us. The problem they will have with this approach is that while their time-base may be this and the next contract, as a family man with a mortgage, my time base is measured in decades.

    I’m very clear on what they’re trying to do. To further demonstrate this, consider what I had heard from a tourist from Brooklyn, NY who stopped me to ask what all the picketting was about.

    He had work in the printing business. He had recalled union/management negotiations. He asked me if the majority of the present employees were due to retire soon. I told him no. He told me why he asked:

    When their contracts were up for negotiations, they similarly didn’t like them, and they had heated union debates about it. It seemed like the active membership didn’t want to accept the contract.

    Nonetheless, they voted and it was accepted by the majority. How??!

    Those union members who were due to retire soon hadd been approached by the company, and were told that if they accepted the contract, they would see an additional 2% tacked onto their pensions.

    How sweet that should have been!! But it turned out that in offering all this addional cash, the company bankrupted the pension fund!! Now nobody has a bean.

    Clearly, we must be vigilant, particularly when we deal with these longer term issues. They can affect us profoundly.

  • Anonymous says:

    My roof started leaking last night. With lockout pay I can’t afford to get it fixed. If Stursberg has free time and isn’t involved in negotiations, he can come over and fix my roof rather than eavesdrop on union rallies.

    What a sleaveen. Negotiate, fix my roof, or just go away.

    Tool.

  • Anonymous says:

    You are a little naive, Tea Maker. What did Dicky expect? To be greeted with open arms? We are paid to ask tough questions (or at least we used to be). He should know that his actions and the lockout are having an impact: growing anger against the CBC, both by its audiences…and its employees. I am glad he saw it first hand. Perhaps he might think twice about his reckless actions.

  • Anonymous says:

    you got every detail WRONG, except for the “old fat guy part”. That was a great description. If either “old fat guy” ever goes missing, I’m sure that description will help the police find them within the hour. Not that they’d go missing. But old fat guys go missing all the time. Oh, wait, i’m confusing, “missing” with “collapse from a heart attack”. My bad, sorry.

  • streetwalker says:

    It wasn’t quite like that.

    Details available all over the place, including http://www.cbcontheline.ca/

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