CBC Lockout Watch, Day 26

Veteran Quebec journalist, broadcaster and author Guy Fournier has been named chairman of the CBC board of directors. His bio is impressive, but no word on how he'll handle the lockout.

August West is beginning a public crack-up in cyberspace, full of rage and bitterness towards "The Gang of Six" top CBC executives:

But you know, at the end of the day, what cripples your sense of celebration more than anything else is the feeling of anger. You know the "managers" are going out for lunch and drinks on their birthdays; you know Stursberg will be out hobnobbing with the film folks at TIFF and bragging about how grand and powerful he is; you know the rest of the Gang of Six and some of the other "managers" drive home every night and moan and groan about how tired they are, how stressful it is, how unreal it is.

And some of those feelings will be justified, but you know what, we live in a society that places an incredible emphasis on our ability to make a living and, at the moment, many of us on the picket-line are living in what can honestly be called poverty.

So at the end of the day, it can be said that, through no fault of our own, we are failures in the eyes of most of society.

And that is something we will never forget. We will never, ever forgive The Gang of Six for what they have done. Ever. We will not be able to look at them straight in the eye, follow a single directive, engage in a single conversation... Nothing.

CBC Drone is also practically at the breaking point with management:

We know it can't be easy having to slink in to work every day, knowing that every time you go past the hired goons you are hurting your colleagues and even your friends just a little bit more. The older ones. The sick ones. The children.

Do you really think we will ever forgive or forget what you did? Is all that extra money you are making really worth our everlasting contempt?

If this lockout drags on through the fall, someone on the picket line is going to go postal.

John Gushue takes a more sanguine view of the long-term effects of the lockout on relations with management:

When we go back, I expect neither rancour nor division with the local management. We all get along; we know the names of each others' kids; we've worked together closely in the past and will again in the future. The goals are similar.

Everyone knows that union rhetoric gets overheated as a matter of course during strikes. No one can lay on the semi-Marxist invective like a union shop steward with 30 years experience under his belt and nothing much else above it.

But in the end, most of it's posturing, all part of the game. When people get back to work, the managers who were liked or respected continue to be so, and those who weren't, won't be.

Bobby of Money Changes Everything is trying to win sympathy for the employees' cause by giving a running total of his daily spending and declining chequing account balance. I'd suggest he set up a Paypal account and go cyberbegging, but this woman has already been there, done that.

Bobby's hard luck story, while shared by many of his locked out colleagues and millions of other people in this country who find it tough to make ends meet, is more one of poormouthing than poverty. He doesn't appear to be entirely without resources, and his attempts to cast himself as the victim of some Dickensian story of destitution and despair make him sound just whiny.

If only to get him back to work and his snivelling off the web, a quick resolution at almost any price will be worth it.