TVA Montreal strike threat delayed until September

Main issue is loss of jobs, says union official

The threat of a strike hovering over TVA has been postponed until September.

Last week, the French-language television network’s 830 Montreal employees voted 97 per cent in favour of a mandate to engage in pressure tactics that could include an unlimited general strike.

Just before the Fête nationale long weekend, however, the union filed a notice of dispute with the federal minister of labour. In accordance with the Canada Labour Code, the minister must appoint a conciliation officer within 15 days of the receipt of the notice of dispute. The officer then has 60 days to confer with both parties. Following the conciliation process, if no agreement has been reached, there is a 21-day waiting period.

Since it is illegal for any parties involved in the dispute to strike or stage a lockout during this “cooling-off” period, TVA employees will have to wait until at least September to strike, at which point the province will be in the midst of an election campaign.

AGREEMENT EXPIRED

The collective agreement for TVA employees expired in December 2016. The 830 employees who voted in favour of the strike include journalists, directors, camera crew, technicians and office clerks — all of TVA’s Montreal employees except their sales representatives. The employees are members of the Syndicat canadien de la fonction publique, an FTQ affiliate.

According to Réal Leboeuf, a union adviser for SCFP, the main point of contention is work being transferred from TVA employees to the media conglomerate’s other subsidiaries where employees are not unionized.

“The main issue is the loss of jobs,” Leboeuf said on Tuesday. “When the last collective agreement was implemented, we lost more than 150 jobs. And the jobs are being transferred to Québecor or TVA subsidiaries that are not unionized with us.

“So our main goal is to ensure the work being done for TVA is being done by TVA’s employees, not by non-unionized employees from Québecor or other TVA subsidiaries.”

Responding to a request for a comment, TVA wrote in an email: “We are always confident that we can come to a negotiated settlement, but we won’t be commenting further right now.”

Presse Canadienne