Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

NNSL (Mar 15/99) - While English-language CBC management returned to board rooms and talks in Toronto this week, a lone striker walked a picket line outside the CBC office in Rankin Inlet.

Alan Beck, a 37-year-old technician, is the only member of the striking Communication, Energy and Paperworkers Union in the Eastern Arctic community. He's been carrying on strike duties singlehandedly since CBC technical workers walked off the job last month. Speaking from Rankin on Thursday, Beck said things are not going well.

"Things are going shitty, and I'm going to die in a snowbank," he said.

Beck said his $200 a week strike pay doesn't go far in light of high prices in Rankin, for the milk he said costs $11.50 and bread $3.

"You do the math," he said.

Beck said he carries out his strike duties to the best of his abilities, picketing outside the office and waging a campaign of awareness, writing political leaders and informing the public about CBC labour issues and the value of a healthy CBC to the Keewatin. But as a single striker in an isolated community, Beck said he also understands his role in the context of the nationwide strike.

"To be honest, I'm doing everything I can here, but the real fight is happening in the major centres," he said. "For me to be standing in front of the CBC every minute of every day is irrational, but any time I'm around there I make sure management comes out and is inconvenienced."

In Yellowknife, CEP Local 85 secretary treasurer Darrel Eros commended the efforts of his fellow striker.

Eros said he was also pleased that the union bargaining team has reopened talks with CBC management, even if a media blackout has been imposed.

"That can be a good sign," he said. "It means they're in serious negotiations and want to prevent anything from derailing them."

Arnold Amber, a bargaining committee member with the Canadian Media Guild in Toronto said his own union's talks are moving ahead slowly. The CMG represents approximately 50 CBC production workers in the NWT and 3,000 across Canada, and will be in a position to join the technicians in a strike this Thursday.

Amber said the two sides have been debating secondary articles and haven't yet broached the subjects of money and job security, two major hurdles in the labour dispute. But Amber added that talks will proceed and that a strike is not inevitable.

"It's not automatic," he said. "When you're not so far apart and it's a question of dotting the I's and crossing the T's, you don't go on strike."