CBC Lockout is killing me...

We're up to almost a week of Antiques Roadshow in place of my CBC Newsworld News.

Can I tell you that I'm going a little crazy? I am not one to say anything against unions; quite the opposite. But this lockout is going to drive me a little nutty.

I know not that many Canadians watch CBC Newsworld. Generally, it's one of those channels that exists, and people may flip by it and watch for a few minutes ....but this is seriously messing up my routine!! 2 PM-5PM on weekdays is my CBC Newsworld watching time!! It's when I get my world news and catch up on what is going on in the world!!

And now, when I turn the channel on, I get Antiques Roadshow. What the fuck?!?

Now, I know that my personal enjoyment and routine is not the biggest problem here. But isn't that when people start giving a fuck? When it affects them personally?

Anyone following this story knows that the reason the lockout occured was because there is a "dispute" over the protocol of when contract workers can be hired.

Ah yes. Once again, neoliberalism rears its ugly head, and we see that all around us, lower paid contract work complete with no benefits abounds. I even love the language. When the workers go, it's a strike. When management kicks them out because they refuse to bend to the whims of the man, it's a labour disruption.

Now, maybe I'm being overly cynical and spinning the story just a bit, but when the first story about the lockout on Yahoo! News goes a little something like this than I just don't know how else to translate it.

"Workers aren't opposed to contract work..." Oh no? Isn't this is why this is happening? Because management wants to hire more contract workers, and - damn them - the people want jobs that provide security and benefits? The CBC isn't some cuthroat private corporation out to make a buck and damn the workers. It's a Crown Corporation. It's supposed be working for the People of Canada. We're the shareholders, here, bucko. And for my 26 bucks a year, I want to know that people who work for the CBC have job security.

I love the CBC. I especially love Newsworld; it's a reason for me to pay whatever ung-dly amount of money it costs to have cable on its own. That's how important it is to me. But what is even more important to me is that Crown Corporations don't fall into the same trap as private corporations. Down with more contract work at the CBC.

I can appreciate that they want the flexibility to bring in specialised people for projects. But 20% contract workers isn't enough for that? How many more could we possibly need? I sympathise with people who need this sort of work, but I mean, come on. What are they teaching people in Journalism and Radio and Television Arts school? Surely people could be hired out of university on a permanent basis who can handle these sorts of work. Also, what about professional development?

Honestly, what I'm worried about is not that 20% of contract workers. They're just trying to feed their families like everyone else. What I am worried about is when contract work starts creeping into more and more of the CBC, and suddenly, Journalism is this piecemail free-lance sort of thing where you have to rely on people to pick up your option or whatever in order to able to get paid. All the time. And no one in journalism has job security. And it becomes like social work - restructuring hits ...the whole slippery slope.

I could see this happening at a private media conglomerate or corporation ...but please don't let it happen to the CBC. Crown Corporations are designed to be friendlier and serve the people rather than shareholders.

Please don't tell me that the time of that is over. And, for G-d's sake, bring back my Newsworld!

Struggling to remain hopeful...

In keeping with my last post which was incredibly sappy I know and not at all my usual rant, I've decided to bring another topic up that I don't immediately abhor ...but instead feel very mixed about.

Dove's new campaign for real beauty.

I'm not sure what to think. I desperately want this to be something I can get behind, because by all accounts it is an incredibly important issue and I know firsthand what it is like to have very low self-esteem because I am not a size 0. But as usual, I'm still a little wary of a corporation coming out and trying to preach that we need to expand the definition of "beauty;" corporations are still all about making money, after all...and I'm a firm believer that there is no marriage of corporations and social responsibility that is not dysfunctional and doomed to fail.

That being said, I'm not blind to the merits of the campaign; even though I hate it, people care what corporations say. We buy what they want us to buy, we believe stuff is good when they say it is ...even I, the very picture of anti-consumerism find myself sometimes wondering if I need new eyeshadow when I see it in Chatelaine. So, when a corporation that has been selling beauty products for years and years says that we need to redefine beauty, that holds slightly more water than when some charity says it (Which sounds very sick, I might add. I really loathe that people can't see good ideas until someone comes along and tries to sell them something with it).

And so we have not only a campaign to sell soap and cold cream, but also something trying to revolutionise the way we see beauty through research, scholarships and even designing a new programme at Harvard to get (presumably) the best minds in the United States thinking about how women have allowed themselves to be defined by a proportion of the population so small that it is barely statistically significant.

I just don't know. I guess I need to watch what happens with it to see. If they follow through with everything it says on the website, then I think it is a step in the right direction. It isn't groundbreaking by any stretch of the word; people have been parading around with studies for YEARS about how beauty is being defined very narrowly and that girls are developing more and more eating disorders to try to conform to this idea that less is more, literally. I mean, I'm only 24 and I can see the rise in it. When I was in high school, I knew one girl who was a size zero, and she didn't even do it on purpose. Now, living in Toronto I see so many of them that it makes me sort of sick. It really isn't healthy.

But if they're just paying lip service to this idea in order to look all sweet and politically correct in order to sell more soap ...then I will, once again feel completely betrayed. I remember seeing the very beginning of this campaign in my Chatelaine and thinking it was a cool idea, and then it disappeared until now. So, we'll see if it actually takes off, or if it turns out to be insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

For now, though, I urge people with all my soul to check out Jean Kilbourne's work; specifically the Killing Us Softly series. These documentaries pretty much changed my life. They talk about women in advertising, and how we're seen and how this reinforces certain (disgusting) ideas. While Dove may be packaging a good idea, Jean Kilbourne really delivers the goods. Her work is amazing and shows why women need to band together and stop this. Support Dove in this real beauty stuff, but it's even more important for us to support each other. Remember, men didn't give us things like the vote, shelters for abused women and inheritance rights; we had to fight tooth and nail for them, and it's only through banding together and not allowing men to divide and conquer us that we're going to get through this.

Send me a comment if you agree.