Source: Unifor National
TORONTO – Unifor is deeply concerned and outraged that Bell Media has once again announced restructuring plans, this time, giving notice to close to 50 Unifor media workers.
“This is a corporation that has made billions of profits at the end of last year and they continue to carry on with their profit-over-people principle,” said Unifor National President Lana Payne.
“This is yet another blow to journalism and democracy and a step towards bigger swaths of news deserts across Canada.”
Unifor was informed that 49 unionized positions may be impacted in Locals 79-M and 723-M, driven by what the company calls, the “Willow” plan to relocate its downtown Toronto news stations CP24, BNN and NewsTalk 1010, to Agincourt, Ont.
The company plans on consolidating these stations with its existing CTV Toronto, CTV News Channel and CTV National News.
The Bell Media cuts specifically impact production workers, including ENG editors and supervisors, media services coordinators, media services technicians, graphics artists, post sound, AV technicians, and engineering technicians, among others.
In June, 2023 Bell cut 1,300 media jobs and in February of this year terminated 4,800 workers, including 100 in media as noon news broadcasts on all CTV stations, except Toronto, and weekend newscasts on all CTV and CTV2 stations, except in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa were cancelled.
Earlier this year Unifor launched its ‘Shame on Bell’ campaign to call out the BCE Board for decimating Bell’s media division while continuing to hike shareholder payouts.
The Bell cuts are the second major hit to local news this month.
On June 12, 35 Unifor members at Global News were laid off as part of restructuring by Corus Entertainment Inc. There were 13 layoffs in Calgary, seven in Toronto, eight in Edmonton, three in Lethbridge, three in Ottawa, and one in B.C.
The 35 Global TV cuts were on top of 11 Unifor members at the company who were already laid off in 2024.
Unifor represents more than 10,000 media workers, including 5,000 members in the broadcast and film industries.
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news
For the full article click the above link…
Bell Media has cut an additional 43 technician jobs as part of the restructuring it announced in February, the company confirmed to CBC News on Thursday.
The announcement comes after the company said it would move its local broadcaster CP24 from its Queen Street headquarters to its Scarborough, Ont., campus this fall, with business news organization BNN Bloomberg to follow in 2025.
“No departures will occur until the period between August 30 and September 27. We will be providing training, offering voluntary severance packages and eliminating vacant positions wherever possible to mitigate the impact on our team members,” a spokesperson for Bell Media told CBC News……
Source: https://www.bce.ca/news-and-media/releases
MONTRÉAL, June 27, 2024 /CNW/ – BCE Inc. (TSX: BCE) (NYSE: BCE) will hold its second-quarter 2024 results conference call with the financial community on Thursday, August 1, 2024 at 8:00 am eastern.
Participants will include Mirko Bibic, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Curtis Millen, Chief Financial Officer. Media are welcome to participate on a listen-only basis.
To participate, please dial toll-free 1-844-933-2401 or 647-724-5455. A replay will be available until midnight on September 1, 2024 by dialing 1-877-454-9859 or 647-483-1416 and entering passcode 4867347#.
A live audio webcast of the conference call will be available on BCE’s website at BCE Q2-2024 conference call (opens in new window) .
June 27, 2024
On Monday, June 24, Unifor National President Lana Payne joined workers, politicians and auto industry representatives for the federal government’s announcement of a 30-day consultation on potential policy response to guard against unfair Chinese electric vehicle imports.
Launching July 2, the consultations will solicit opinions on how best to prevent dumping and other unfair practices by EV manufacturers in China that threaten Canadian auto and auto parts jobs across the country.
“We look forward to participating in the consultation process,” Payne said. “We also look forward to playing our part in continuing to rebuild Canada’s auto manufacturing capacity so that Canadian autoworkers, and Canadians at large, can benefit from a competitive and sustainable sector for generations.”
Canada’s auto industry continues to transition towards electric vehicle manufacturing, a shift that is essential for Canada’s journey to net zero emissions and for sustaining jobs into the future. Canada is in a unique position to leverage its numerous advantages, including vast mineral resources, highly educated workforce, and existing auto and auto parts industrial capacity to become a global leader in building the next generation of electric vehicles.
“There is a lot at stake for Canadian workers in this EV transition. Tackling climate change fairly and justly means creating good, fulfilling and yes, unionized jobs.” added Payne. “There is no importing our way to net zero. The launch of this consultation into unfair Chinese EV imports is welcome and necessary.”
Payne also outlined how previous governments mishandled trade relations, signing detrimental deals that have harmed Canadian workers. Countries like China have received preferential treatment to invest and sell in Canada without reciprocal benefits, under the guise of fairness. The results of this approach has never been equitable and if action is not taken with electric vehicle imports, it would certainly damage Canada’s efforts to rebuild and grow the domestic auto and auto parts industries.
“A surge of low cost EV imports from China will undermine everything being done here right now to rebuild and grow a strong and truly national auto industry, one that competes on the world stage,” Payne said. “Our members, quite frankly, have worked too hard to get this to this point to allow us to go backwards. There is no justification to trade away high paying, high skilled jobs for cheap and high carbon intensive vehicles built under deplorable labour conditions.”
Watch Payne’s full remarks in the video below.