A brutal announcement rocked the media world on Thursday afternoon when Québécor President Pierre-Karl Péladeau announced that 547 jobs would be eliminated within TVA Group as part of a major restructuring.
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Steve Bargoné, counsel for the Canadian Union of Public Employees, believes there were “clear signs in Pierre-Karl Péladeau’s behavior” that predicted these layoffs.
“The extent of yesterday’s tsunami was unimaginable. VAT as we knew it no longer exists. It will become an empty shell,” laments Mr. Bargoné.
“I have been with the SFP for 24 years and this is by far the worst day I have ever had in my career,” he said, visibly moved.
The union representative describes the cavalier manner in which the announcement was made and says that Mr. Péladeau violated the rules of the collective agreement.
“The presentation is never about the application of collective agreements. In Montreal it is very clear that we cannot take a contract, cut it and subcontract it out, whereas the no-hiding plan proposed to us yesterday is exactly that.”
- Listen to the interview with Alain Saulnier, former Director General of Information at Radio Canada QUB radio :
“Mr. Péladeau tells us bluntly: “We will no longer make our own production and send it to independent producers”, and this is defended by our collective agreements, so it is clear that there were not many labor lawyers at the table because these measures cannot be done will be,” he says.
Mr Bargoné also regrets the lack of communication and believes that other solutions could have been considered and foreseen.
“We are at the bottom of the food chain. No one has called me in months and said, “We have problems, we need to talk, we need to try to find solutions.” Between 0 and 547 employees, is there a connection solution where we can talk to each other? It’s not that I didn’t get in touch, but the calls never come back,” he says sadly.
He concluded: “We will do everything we can to prevent the dissolution of TVA.”
Watch the full interview in the video above.