TVO workers blame Ford government as strike drags on

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a new Village Media website devoted to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park.

Some employees of Ontario's public broadcaster have been on strike for more than 40 days and say they're holding the Ford government responsible for the impasse.

"The buck always stops with the premier of the province," said Meredith Martin, president of the Canadian Media Guild local that represents the 74 striking workers, at a press conference at Queen's Park Tuesday.

"The CEO of TVO is a government appointee and the head of the board of directors is a government appointee. And they're making decisions, in as far as I can say, in consultation with the government."

The union suspects that TVO was directed by the province not to go any higher than the "final offer" members voted down over the weekend.

"It feels like they've been given some number from above and are sticking to it, as we've seen by them simply not moving their wage offer since August," said union treasurer Dan Dimillo.

TVO's management did not dispute that assertion when The Trillium asked about it in an interview.

"Because we are a taxpayer- and donor-funded organization, we make sure, like all similar public agencies would, that we have conversations with government around decisions that might have a broader impact beyond our agency," said Mitch Patten, VP of Corporate and Community Affairs. "I'm not really comfortable getting into the details of those conversations, but certainly TVO is no different than any other organization. We have conversations and always want to make sure that we understand the impact from the government's perspective."

Patten wouldn't comment on what the broader impact beyond TVO might be. However, he noted that granting the demands of the 74 workers in this bargaining unit, who create journalistic and educational content for the public broadcaster, could set a precedent for the rest of TVO's 300-plus employees.

Management's final offer included wage increases of 3 per cent retroactive to 2022, 2.75 per cent for 2023 and 1.75 per cent for 2024, and a climbdown from a request to waive a previous agreement on job security for workers who create educational content that sees them converted to staff after working two years on contract.

The union is seeking 4.75 per cent in year one, 4.25 per cent in year two and 4 per cent in year three, plus $2,500 for each employee with a wage capped by the province's wage-restraint legislation, known as Bill 124.

The difference between the two positions is less than $300,000 per year, the union said. 

The striking workers also criticized their management for refusing to offer them a cost-of-living wage increase while socking away money in long-term investments, noting that TVO has invested $17 million in financial products.

"I don't believe that TVO shouldn't be operating as a hedge fund to try to make money from investments," said Dimillo. "I think it should be increasing its services using the talented people that it has on staff."

Dimillo, a certified Ontario math teacher who works on digital educational content for TVO, said he looked at the agency's books and found that $14 million of the $17 million long-term investment is Guaranteed Investment Certificates (GICs) paying 4.8 per cent annual interest purchased in the summer of 2022.

He said he suspects TVO may have made the investment to fulfil a mandate from the provincial government to generate its own revenue.

"But the self-generated revenue in the mandate of TVO is not supposed to come from investment activities," said Dimillo. "It's supposed to come from services to Ontario and to students abroad and to students from other provinces, as well as various other outreach efforts."

Patten flatly denied that suspicion and said the investments are necessary for the organization to cover its long-term liabilities including retiree benefits and capital reserves.

"We just think that's prudent for any organization to operate that way and we don't think it's appropriate to spend those funds on current operating expenses, like salaries," he said.

As for what may come next, Patten invited the union to come back with proposals for a settlement.

"If they are monetary, then that may be problematic, but any ideas that are non-monetary, we're happy to sit down and, and work through them at the table," he said.

Both sides said they hope the strike will end soon.

"There's a lot of great content that is not being produced right now," said Patten.

For its part, the union is asking to end the dispute with binding arbitration, hoping that a neutral third party would determine "what is appropriate and fair." 

That appears to be a no-go for management.

"Binding arbitration is, I think, most applicable in situations where a strike could cause unacceptable harm — thinking of closing schools or disrupting hospitals or shutting down fire stations or whatever it might be," said Patten. "We'll be the first people to say that we think that TVO plays a pretty important role and offers a pretty valuable service to the people of Ontario, but it doesn't come quite to that level of closing schools or disrupting hospitals."

The Trillium reached out to spokespeople for the minister of education, whose mandate includes TVO, and the president of the Treasury Board, who is responsible for negotiations, but neither provided comment by deadline.