In light of the recent survey sent to our members on September 1st, 2020.
APS wishes to inform the members that it has never given its approval for the content of this survey. The questions were never submitted to us nor the approach, highly questionable, resorting to the FORCED CHOICE technique. The survey does not reflect the values we believe in as a union and we wish to disassociate from it as an organization.
On September 1st, 2020, the employer transmitted to all unionized employees of CBC/Radio-Canada a questionnaire on social benefits by asking them to return the completed form to the employer. The questionnaire targeted employees’ personal evaluations for the different benefits presently available in the spectrum of the coverages at the CBC. The questionnaire also sought to find out about replacement options such as the free choice option as an example. Furthermore, the survey placed existing benefits in competition with each other by asking employees to choose by excluding some at the expense of others (the forced-choice technique).
Social benefits are in fact the result of negotiations between the employer and the unions. In the case of the social benefits in force at the CBC, all the unions of the employer collectively negotiate through the Consultative Committee on Staff Benefits (the CCSB). The forced choices used in this survey are leading us to suspect that the employer is feeling out the possibilities of modifications or cuts to existing benefits. in effect, at the CBC We want to make it clear that the benefits contained in our working conditions are here to stay. They were achieved as the results of long-standing efforts deployed by all the unions sometimes originating from decades past. We want to make clear that we stand committed to the preservation of every one of them as well to the only decisional forum that oversees them, the CCSB.
This is the reason we are asking the CBC to step back and eliminate this survey or at the least to inform the employees that were solicited to fill out this questionnaire that ONLY the unions are responsible to negotiate these benefits they have presently. APS on its part wants all of its members to know that existing benefits are enshrined in our working conditions and any future change will only be made to enhance them.