OTTAWA — Federal politicians condemned CBC/Radio-Canada president and CEO Catherine Tait’s refusal to rule out bonuses for executives this year despite plans to cut 10 per cent of the national broadcaster’s workforce.
“It’s embarrassing,” said Conservative Sen. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu on his way to his party’s caucus meeting on Wednesday morning. “When you lay people off, when you have to let people go, you need to lead by example and make sure to opt out of those bonuses.”
Tait told members of the House of Commons heritage committee on Tuesday evening that CBC/Radio-Canada’s board of directors will decide by the end of the fiscal year, on March 31, whether she and other executives will receive bonuses, which she called “performance pay.”
She refused to opt out from receiving a bonus, despite repeated attempts by all parties to make her understand how such a decision could be perceived by the public.
The national broadcaster announced in December that it plans to cut 600 positions and not fill 200 vacancies, as well as cut the production budget for television and digital original series, to deal with a $125-million budgetary shortfall.
“The idea that we would have bonuses at a time of cuts to vital services just doesn’t make sense. I think that Ms. Tait and those with her heard that message,” said NDP House leader Peter Julian after Tuesday’s meeting.
Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge said on Wednesday that the budget cuts of 3.3 per cent are still “pending” and that no final decisions have been made for CBC/Radio-Canada’s funding in the next budget.
“Of course, what I’m thinking about is the future and the sustainability of our public broadcaster because they are facing the same media crisis that every other media is facing,” she told reporters.
About 100 jobs have been cut since December, including 50 positions at the CBC, 40 at Radio-Canada and 10 management jobs, said Shaun Poulter, CBC/Radio-Canada’s executive director of government relations and public affairs.
Poulter, however, cautioned against linking these job cuts to the planned cutbacks since hundreds of people come and go in the corporation at any given time, he said.
Last year’s CBC/Radio-Canada annual report shows it received nearly $1.3 billion in government funding, with another $515 million coming through other revenue sources such as advertising.
Tait told the committee the extra pay is part of a manager’s salary and is not an end-of-year “bonus.” Some of a manager’s pay is held back and only paid if the CBC hits “key performance indicators” or KPIs, she said.
Tait told MPs repeatedly that she will “consider all scenarios” for this fiscal year but insisted that there is a system in place regarding performance pay that needs to be respected and that it is too early to determine what the compensation would look like.
“If we achieve the results of the current fiscal year, I will recommend that 1,140 unaffiliated, non-unionized employees receive their fair pay, their performance pay, if they achieve their targets,” she said.
“We are on track to meet most of our targets. So that will mean that some portion of the corporate performance award should be awarded.”
Poulter said it would be “premature” to dismiss compensation before March 31 “because you want to send a signal that frankly, doesn’t save jobs and doesn’t address the structural deficit that we’ve been talking about here.”
Poulter said it is “not the government’s role” to rule out executive compensation or bonuses for Crown corporations, which was confirmed by a government official.
St-Onge was careful not to voice her support or her disapproval of Tait after her testimony, but noted that the CBC president’s mandate ends at the end of the year and that the search for her replacement is underway.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau implied that the national broadcaster will be able to count on the federal government’s support.
“In an era of misinformation and disinformation and the transformation of our media in the digital era, we need CBC/Radio-Canada to be strong, to protect our culture, to protect our democracy and to tell our stories from coast to coast,” he said in question period Wednesday.
“We will always be here to defend CBC/Radio-Canada, and we’re going to seek to make necessary investments to make sure it continues to fulfill its mandate to inform, entertain and to strengthen democracy here in Canada,” he added.
File this column under “for what it’s worth.”
“Communication is one of the most important skills you require for a successful life.” — Catherine Pulsifer, author.
I’m one hundred percent in agreement with Pulsifer, which is why my evaluation of candidates begins with their writing skills. If a candidate’s writing skills and verbal communication skills, which I’ll assess when interviewing, aren’t well above average, I’ll pass on them regardless of their skills and experience.
Why?
Because business is fundamentally about getting other people to do things—getting employees to be productive, getting customers to buy your products or services, and getting vendors to agree to a counteroffer price. In business, as in life in general, you can’t make anything happen without effective communication; this is especially true when job searching when your writing is often an employer’s first impression of you.
Think of all the writing you engage in during a job search (resumes, cover letters, emails, texts) and all your other writing (LinkedIn profile, as well as posts and comments, blogs, articles, tweets, etc.) employers will read when they Google you to determine if you’re interview-worthy.
With so much of our communication today taking place via writing (email, text, collaboration platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, ClickUp, WhatsApp and Rocket.Chat), the importance of proficient writing skills can’t be overstated.
When assessing a candidate’s writing skills, you probably think I’m looking for grammar and spelling errors. Although error-free writing is important—it shows professionalism and attention to detail—it’s not the primary reason I look at a candidate’s writing skills.
The way someone writes reveals how they think.
Effective writing isn’t about using sophisticated vocabulary. Hemingway demonstrated that deceptively simple, stripped-down prose can captivate readers. Effective writing takes intricate thoughts and presents them in a way that makes the reader think, “Damn! Why didn’t I see it that way?” A good writer is a dead giveaway for a good thinker. More than ever, the business world needs “good thinkers.”
Therefore, when I come across a candidate who’s a good writer, hence a good thinker, I know they’re likely to be able to write:
Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: AI, which job seekers are using en masse. Earlier this year, I wrote that AI’s ability to hyper-increase an employee’s productivity—AI is still in its infancy; we’ve seen nothing yet—in certain professions, such as writing, sales and marketing, computer programming, office and admin, and customer service, makes it a “fewer employees needed” tool, which understandably greatly appeals to employers. In my opinion, the recent layoffs aren’t related to the economy; they’re due to employers adopting AI. Additionally, companies are trying to balance investing in AI with cost-cutting measures. CEOs who’ve previously said, “Our people are everything,” have arguably created today’s job market by obsessively focusing on AI to gain competitive advantages and reduce their largest expense, their payroll.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that most AI usage involves generating written content, content that’s obvious to me, and likely to you as well, to have been written by AI. However, here’s the twist: I don’t particularly care.
Why?
Because the fundamental skill I’m looking for is the ability to organize thoughts and communicate effectively. What I care about is whether the candidate can take AI-generated content and transform it into something uniquely valuable. If they can, they’re demonstrating the skills of being a good thinker and communicator. It’s like being a great DJ; anyone can push play, but it takes skill to read a room and mix music that gets people pumped.
Using AI requires prompting effectively, which requires good writing skills to write clear and precise instructions that guide the AI to produce desired outcomes. Prompting AI effectively requires understanding structure, flow and impact. You need to know how to shape raw information, such as milestones throughout your career when you achieved quantitative results, into a compelling narrative.
So, what’s the best way to gain and enhance your writing skills? As with any skill, you’ve got to work at it.
Two rules guide my writing:
Don’t just string words together; learn to organize your thoughts, think critically, and communicate clearly. Solid writing skills will significantly set you apart from your competition, giving you an advantage in your job search and career.
_____________________________________________________________________
Nick Kossovan, a well-seasoned veteran of the corporate landscape, offers “unsweetened” job search advice. You can send Nick your questions to artoffindingwork@gmail.com.
MONTREAL – Politics, public opinion and salary hikes south of the border helped push Air Canada toward a deal that secures major pay gains for pilots, experts say.
Hammered out over the weekend, the would-be agreement includes a cumulative wage hike of nearly 42 per cent over four years — an enormous bump by historical standards — according to one source who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. The previous 10-year contract granted increases of just two per cent annually.
The federal government’s stated unwillingness to step in paved the way for a deal, noted John Gradek, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made it plain the two sides should hash one out themselves.
“Public opinion basically pressed the federal cabinet, including the prime minister, to keep their hands clear of negotiations and looking at imposing a settlement,” said Gradek, who teaches aviation management at McGill University.
After late-night talks at a hotel near Toronto’s Pearson airport, the country’s biggest airline and the union representing 5,200-plus aviators announced early Sunday morning they had reached a tentative agreement, averting a strike that would have grounded flights and affected some 110,000 passengers daily.
The relative precariousness of the Liberal minority government as well as a push to appear more pro-labour underlay the prime minister’s hands-off approach to the negotiations.
Trudeau said Friday the government would not step in to fix the impasse — unlike during a massive railway work stoppage last month and a strike by WestJet mechanics over the Canada Day long weekend that workers claimed road roughshod over their constitutional right to collective bargaining. Trudeau said the government respects the right to strike and would only intervene if it became apparent no negotiated deal was possible.
“They felt that they really didn’t want to try for a third attempt at intervention and basically said, ‘Let’s let the airline decide how they want to deal with this one,'” said Gradek.
“Air Canada ran out of support as the week wore on, and by the time they got to Friday night, Saturday morning, there was nothing left for them to do but to basically try to get a deal set up and accepted by ALPA (Air Line Pilots Association).”
Trudeau’s government was also unlikely to consider back-to-work legislation after the NDP tore up its agreement to support the Liberal minority in Parliament, Gradek said. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, whose party has traditionally toed a more pro-business line, also said last week that Tories “stand with the pilots” and swore off “pre-empting” the negotiations.
Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau had asked Ottawa on Thursday to impose binding arbitration pre-emptively — “before any travel disruption starts” — if talks failed. Backed by business leaders, he’d hoped for an effective repeat of the Conservatives’ move to head off a strike in 2012 by legislating Air Canada pilots and ground crew to stick to their posts before any work stoppage could start.
The request may have fallen flat, however. Gradek said he believes there was less anxiety over the fallout from an airline strike than from the countrywide railway shutdown.
He also speculated that public frustration over thousands of cancelled flights would have flowed toward Air Canada rather than Ottawa, prompting the carrier to concede to a deal yielding “unheard of” gains for employees.
“It really was a total collapse of the Air Canada bargaining position,” he said.
Pilots are slated to vote in the coming weeks on the four-year contract.
Last year, pilots at Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and American Airlines secured agreements that included four-year pay boosts ranging from 34 per cent to 40 per cent, ramping up pressure on other carriers to raise wages.
After more than a year of bargaining, Air Canada put forward an offer in August centred around a 30 per cent wage hike over four years.
But the final deal, should union members approve it, grants a 26 per cent increase in the first year alone, retroactive to September 2023, according to the source. Three wage bumps of four per cent would follow in 2024 through 2026.
Passengers may wind up shouldering some of that financial load, one expert noted.
“At the end of the day, it’s all us consumers who are paying,” said Barry Prentice, who heads the University of Manitoba’s transport institute.
Higher fares may be mitigated by the persistence of budget carrier Flair Airlines and the rapid expansion of Porter Airlines — a growing Air Canada rival — as well as waning demand for leisure trips. Corporate travel also remains below pre-COVID-19 levels.
Air Canada said Sunday the tentative contract “recognizes the contributions and professionalism of Air Canada’s pilot group, while providing a framework for the future growth of the airline.”
The union issued a statement saying that, if ratified, the agreement will generate about $1.9 billion of additional value for Air Canada pilots over the course of the deal.
Meanwhile, labour tension with cabin crew looms on the horizon. Air Canada is poised to kick off negotiations with the union representing more than 10,000 flight attendants this year before the contract expires on March 31.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
Companies in this story: (TSX:AC)
HALIFAX – Ottawa is negotiating a $500-million bailout for Nova Scotia’s privately owned electric utility, saying the money will be used to prevent a big spike in electricity rates.
Federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson made the announcement today in Halifax, saying Nova Scotia Power Inc. needs the money to cover higher costs resulting from the delayed delivery of electricity from the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric plant in Labrador.
Wilkinson says that without the money, the subsidiary of Emera Inc. would have had to increase rates by 19 per cent over “the short term.”
Nova Scotia Power CEO Peter Gregg says the deal, once approved by the province’s energy regulator, will keep rate increases limited “to be around the rate of inflation,” as costs are spread over a number of years.
The utility helped pay for construction of an underwater transmission link between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, but the Muskrat Falls project has not been consistent in delivering electricity over the past five years.
Those delays forced Nova Scotia Power to spend more on generating its own electricity.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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