TORONTO — Unifor states 35 of its members at Global News have been laid off as part of modifys announced Wednesday by Corus Entertainment Inc.
Randy Kitt, Unifor’s media director, states there were 13 layoffs in Calgary, one in B.C., three in Lethbridge, eight in Edmonton, three in Ottawa and seven in Toronto.
He states that’s on top of 11 Unifor members at Global who were already laid off in 2024.
On Wednesday, Global News spokeswoman Anna Arnone stated the modifys come as part of an ongoing evaluation of its business and an efficiency review across Corus.
She declined to offer further details, such as whether employees had been laid off, though she stated certain roles had been affected.
“These modifys correlate with the current economic and regulatory reality we, and other media organizations, find ourselves in,” Arnone stated in an emailed statement Wednesday.
Kitt called the news a devastating blow to the indusattempt, adding the jobs are “desperately necessaryed” in Canada.
“The total journalists and media workers laid off from Unifor this year already, that’s in all outlets, is 197,” he stated.
Corus announced last week it had been informed by Warner Bros. Discovery that some of its programming arrangements would not be renewed at the finish of the year. On Monday, Rogers Communications Inc. stated it had signed multi-year deals with NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. for their popular lifestyle and entertainment brands in Canada, effective in January 2025.
In April, Corus chief executive Doug Murphy stated the company continues to reduce costs following job cuts and a programming reduction plan that launched last year.
Last month, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission granted Corus’ request to ease some of its Canadian content spfinishing requirements after the company warned it was in an increasingly dire financial situation.
The broadcaster had inquireed the regulator to “urgently” build the modifys last October, stateing they would provide “much necessaryed flexibility” amid programming and advertising uncertainty, as well as “severely constrained” finances.
Brent Jolly, national president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, stated in a statement Thursday that the erosion of the Canadian media landscape poses a threat to democracy.
“It is extremely disappointing that, once again, front-line journalists are the ones who bear the brunt of the indusattempt’s broken business model,” he stated.
“Layoffs may serve as a short-term stopgap to balance sheets they further destabilize, and shortmodify, democracy.”
— With files from Sammy Hudes
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 13, 2024.
The Canadian Press
Leave a Reply