Recognition of Prior Service as Seniority

In the last three years our Local Union has grown substantially. Along with CTV’s sale of Citytv to Rogers, our National Union organized OMNI-TV operations and engineering employees who are now solidly part of our local. In addition, employees of Etalk are now part of our local, and so are operations and engineering employees of BNN. However, we have not been consistent in the way that we have treated these new members in terms of seniority; if they were organized or came into our bargaining units by agreement all of their prior service was credited for seniority. If they were transferred into the bargaining unit by the employer or applied for a position from another division their prior service with the Company was not credited as seniority.

The employers we deal with now; Rogers and Bell Media, have different views about service and seniority than did CHUM Limited. As a result it was necessary to review and to update our policies about service and seniority in order to treat all of our members fairly and equitably. Therefore, here is a motion passed by your local executive board. The objective of the motion is to recognize the service that many of our new members have brought with them from other divisions of the same company. We will also recognize service that our long term members brought with them from other divisions of CHUM Limited. In this way we feel we will correct the inconsistency in our treatment of members’ seniority.

We are requesting that members who have come from other divisions of Rogers, CTV, or CHUM and who may not have received credit for “uninterrupted service” as seniority to contact us with the details.