It has been making news for weeks, but is now official: Buzz Hargrove has been replaced as President of the CAW today.

I haven't posted much recently, for a variety of reasons.  However, I heard a story at a conference last week which prompted me to want to write.  The story points to the sad moral state of affairs we live in these days.

The story is this.  A company decides to contract out its distribution activity, so it hires a third party company to manage the transportation of its goods by truck.  This third party company then hires drivers to drive these trucks.  One such driver is involved in an accident when driving in the U.S.  The driver is treated, but hurt too badly to be able to drive back.  The two companies argue about whose employee the driver actually is, and both refuse to pay to have him transported back to Canada.  So his wife ends up driving down and picking him up.

To top the story off, the company whose goods are on the truck does pay to have the truck returned to Canada.  So, the goods and truck are important, the driver is not.  Lovely world we live in.

I’ve been watching the ‘illegal’ strike in British Columbia with interest, and some satisfaction. It isn’t often, in Canada, that we see unions willing to go to these lengths. In many ways, unions have become very conservative and unwilling to take significant risks. I hope the rest of us can learn from the B.C. example.

For that matter, I think everyone can learn from this. We have all become, in every aspect of our lives, too willing to except what we think is wrong, thinking “What difference can I make?” We need to overcome that attitude, and become more activist in our daily lives.

Speaking up for what you believe may not make you popular, and may not make your live easier. But it will certainly make you feel better about yourself, the world, and your place in it.

There is a tentative agreement between the CBC and its locked out workers. It sounds like the agreement had been reached by the time I wrote my last entry. I might have known about it then – if I’d been able to get the news from the CBC.

I’ve just read, in this morning’s Globe & Mail, about the Bali Bombing. I am currently traveling around Ontario on holidays, so this is the first Globe I’ve seen since Friday. I would normally listen to CBC Radio One while I’m driving, but have replaced it with CDs because of the lockout. I’m feeling a little out of touch! Who knows what else I’ve missed! Is Dubya still President? Has cancer been cured?

So, to the half-witted nincompoops running the CBC, I have this to say. Get Radio One back on the air (along with the rest). End the lockout, stop trying to obliterate permanent jobs (who know, the good kind you have), and get back to doing what you are supposed to do (you know, that pesky business about being a public broadcaster). Your Guild colleagues get it. Try really, really hard, and maybe you’ll figure it out too.

Oh, and yes, the Bali business is bad. It would be terrific if we could figure out how to stop killing each other. “Why can’t we all just get along?” If you know where that quote comes from, you have good taste in movies. Hint: The character saying it is the President of the United States and dies soon after saying it.

It is nice to have a Blog, and be able to rant. Ain’t technology grand!

I normally listen to the CBC on the way to work, and over the course of many mornings. However, at the moment, the employees of the CBC who produce programs and present them on-air, have been locked out by management. There are a couple of things which I think are worth noting about this.

First, management is referring to a ‘labour disruption’ at the CBC on both the radio and television networks. That is very misleading, and seems designed to be so. This isn’t a labour dispute, and workers are not on strike. They have been prevented from working by management.

Second, this isn’t about money – for the workers. CBC employees (who, again, would rather be at work) aren’t fighting for big wage increases. This is about management attempting to make radical changes to the CBC. Ultimately, management wants to eliminate the permanent workforce of dedicated professionals they now have in favour of temporary employees who would live contract to contract and have no permanent relationship with the CBC.

It seems to me this is about two visions for the CBC. Management is behaving as though they believe the CBC is just another business. Locked out workers see the CBC as I think most of us do – as an important part of, and contributor to, Canadian identity and culture. Let’s protect it, and not allow wrongheaded managers destroy it.

Moreover, whatever you may think of the role of the CBC as a public broadcaster, we all ought to lament the loss of permanent jobs to temporary ones. This isn’t limited to the CBC, and we too easily buy the corporate line that it is necessary in order to compete in a global economy. We should be talking more about this issue, and challenging the view that decent jobs are a quaint or old-fashioned idea.

Note: Take a look at www.cbcontheline.ca for more information on the CBC lock-out.