:)

We've got a deal. Or at least, a memorandum of agreement, which, once all the language is written should amount to a deal.


So far...from what I understand the corp will have to keep the number of contract workers at 9.5 percent of the permenant workforce.

And BEST of all...the deal includes something they're calling the Northern Service Interpreters Premium. Which amounts to $800.00 a year for anyone who works in an aboriginal language in the CBC's Northern Service. You should have heard the shout go up from us Northerners on the president's and co-ordinators call over that one. Something, finally something for the North out of all this crap. This is something guild members in the North have been fighting for for 10 years!

I'm so happy about this one...because it means I can go to my colleagues with something that's specifically for THEM in this whole thing.

Lots of unanswered questions though. About the details of this deal, of course. About when and how we go back to work. (Pre- or post-ratification, and more importantly...pre- or post- the first HNIC?)
But also about why CBC's negotiators went from talking about binding arbitration, to some major concessions, in about an hour's time...

More details will follow. WE all know WHO is in the details, but so far it seems like we've got a good deal.

Was it hockey? The heritage committee? Some blackberry message from PM PM TO RB the S*B?

WHO CARES! WE GOT A DEAL.

And now I've got to sleep.

J