Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

NNSL (Feb 24/99) - CBC regional director Marie Wilson returned from Iqaluit and the Nunavut elections last week to find a strike and a picket line on her doorstep.

"A strike is not a happy circumstance for anybody," she said Friday. "The first thing that gets put on the line is morale -- people feel nervousness, anger and fear, all mixed up together."

With CBC technical workers striking across the country and the 15 Yellowknife members of the Communication, Energy and Paperworkers Union are out at the pickets, CBC programming has already been affected.

But Wilson said radio programming will not be as adversely affected as television.

She said that a former CBC North job classification was announcer-operator, giving many production staff technical experience. As a result, Wilson said management has the know-how to handle some technical-radio tasks, but that television is another story.

"On the TV side we're structure much more similarly to the rest of Canada, so that the daily shows are off the air," she said.

Union Local 85 president Anne Lynagh said she was also in Nunavut last Wednesday, watching as "Newsworld" went off the air. But she took part in a conference call with local presidents across the country and the negotiating team in Toronto.

Lynagh said she was pleased with the state of affairs on her return to Yellowknife.

"I was very heartened in Yellowknife to see the support of the plant workers, management and the public," she said.

"It's really great to have your colleagues on the line with you."

Lynagh's colleagues included CBC production staff, members of the Canadian Media Guild who may be facing their own strike vote in the coming weeks. She said there is some speculation that management may lock them out before that, however, hoping to save costs, as programs like "North Beat" are already prevented from airing.

Lynagh said strikers will be living on about one-quarter their usual pay and that it has been the cumulative salary depreciation over the past 15 years that has sent many CBC staffers fleeing to the private sector.

"The only broadcaster to pay less than the CBC is the Shopping Network, and I think Canadians deserve better than that," she said.

Wilson said that though no strike is easy to deal with, whether at a big or a small branch, what's true is that the staff at CBC North do know each other on a personal level and care how individuals are being affected. Experience also helps.

"I've spent many months of my life on a picket line, too," she said.