Montreal, Wednesday, March 20, 2002 – At the demonstration held in front of the Quebecor building late yesterday afternoon, with more than 1,000 demonstrators turning out, employees at TVA-Montra006c expressed their full support for their colleagues at Vido0074ron. Ra006c Leboeuf, president of the Syndicat des employs0020de TVA, declared that, “employees from Vido0074ron and TVA speak as one,” and that, “Quebecor will have to learn that you don’t sell unionized workers the way you sell newspaper.” It may be recalled that TVA and Vido0074ron are two companies that now find themselves in the fold of Quebecor, whose unionized employees are members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (QFL).
Immediately after the demonstration, some 200 TVA-Montra006c employees met together to review the state of negotiations with their employer. The collective agreement for TVA employees has been up since May 2000, and negotiations to renew the contract began in November 2001. This is the first collective bargaining to take place since all TVA employees were regrouped under one union.
The Syndicat des employs0020de TVA-Montra006c brings together some 700 employees from TVA-Montra006c, technicians, journalists, producers and office employees. With 7,000 members in communications in Qub0065c, CUPE is present in a number of other sectors, notably health and social services, education universities, urban transport and airlines, crown corporations and Quebec public agencies, hydro-electricity and municipalities. With nearly 100,000 members, CUPE is the largest union affiliated with the QFL.
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SOURCE: CANADIAN UNION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEES (QFL)