As you probably know by now, Local 279 of the Amalgamated Transit Union has voted to retain the right to strike rather than have future labour disputes resolved by binding arbitration. This is a bit surprising because back at the end of January the very same local agreed to resolve the labour dispute at the time by binding arbitration, which is why I removed the little anti-ATU logo that had appeared in the header of my blog.

I was quite surprised by this because I would have thought the union membership would have followed the advice of their president, Andre Cornellier, whose advice they followed when they went on strike in the first place.

Does this mean they don’t trust him anymore?

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Fans of WPBS can breath a sigh of relief. According to the WPBS-TV website earlier today, Rogers is not going to be pulling WPBS from its Ottawa lineup afterall.

“We are pleased to be able to share this news with our viewers”, said Tom Hanley, President and General Manager of WPBS-TV.  “Together with Rogers, we have found a solution to continue to deliver programming to our friends in Ottawa through a reliable fibre connection.”

Clearly the backlash was greater than Rogers had anticipated because just a couple of days ago they were saying they were still committed to their plan.

Frankly, this is the best thing Rogers could have done from a public relations point of view because it lets them say “See? You spoke and we listened”, which huge companies like them rarely get to do. I noticed last night that channel 66, which was their Your World This Week promotional channel, is now carrying the Detroit PBS station, which is something I suggested to Rogers when I called them a few days ago. (I don’t know whether this is a permanent change because the cable lineup on the Rogers website still show YWTW as being on 66, but when they’ve promo’d other channels on 66 in the past they didn’t change the tag from YWTW.)

Congratulations to WPBS-TV on remaining part of the Ottawa community! And a tip o’ the hat to Rogers for showing that they still do listen to their customers. And a special tip o’ the hat to everyone who showed their support and complained to Rogers. 🙂

Update: CBC’s coverage of this.

Randall Deneley’s Memo to Rogers: PBS fans are right in today’s Ottawa Citizen is worth reading.

I’m a long-time Rogers customer, having had a Rogers cellphone since September 1991 when they were Cantel and Rogers cable service everwhere I’ve lived and I’m upset. My parents have had Rogers cable since the dawn of time and they’re really upset. Over the years, they’ve been loyal supporters of WPBS and the decision by Rogers to remove WPBS is causing them to start looking at alternative television providers. Sadly, it doesn’t appear that any of the other providers carry WPBS, though a clever company, like StarChoice, should be looking at adding WPBS to its lineup because there’s a chance to pick up a fair number of new customers.

I’m not sure why David Purdy, vice-president of Rogers, seems intent on ignoring his customers, but he is. Perhaps we should be focusing our attention on the members of Rogers’ Board of Directors to get their attention.

It appears that Rogers has started to realize that WPBS viewers in Ottawa are not happy. However, according to a story in today’s Citizen it seems that they think we’re unhappy because we think it will cost us more money.

They’re wrong.

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Like many people in Ottawa, I have watched WPBS-TV from Watertown, NY,  on Rogers cable over the years. CBC has a story on their website about Rogers’ decision to replace the Watertown public television broadcaster with the PBS station in Detroit, effective August 18th. According to the story, WPBS only learned of this decision when an Ottawa viewer emailed them. WPBS’s website has an urgent message to their viewers about this.

20% of WPBS’ viewers are based in Eastern Ontario and those 20% contribute 70% of the money they raise through their funding drives. So, being pulled from Rogers Ottawa is going to have a serious impact on their fund raising.

According to the customer service rep I talked to at Rogers when I called to voice my feelings, they made this decision based on comments received over the last few years that people want PBS Detroit because it has a digital signal. She also told me that she’s been receiving a lot of calls from people who are unhappy with this decision, which she has been relaying to her management.

I asked if they couldn’t just assign it a new channel slot instead of removing it completely, but all she could say is that she has been passing questions like these upwards. Incidentally, if you have a digital cable box, you already have access to the Detroit PBS station on channel 163.

If you’re upset about this decision, the best thing you can do is let Rogers know ASAP. You can reach them by phone at 1-888-764-3771 or through their website at http://www.rogers.com/contactus. If enough people complain, they might just reconsider their decision.

By now you’re probably aware of the Swine flu outbreak that’s wreaking havoc everywhere. People are cancelling vacations, athletes are competing in front of empty stadia and some people are even dying because of it. Consequently, governments are starting to come up with protocols to be followed when someone is suspected of having it. The most extreme protocol is almost certainly the one announced by Secretary Napolitano of the US Department of Homeland Security in a briefing she gave yesterday. I’ve extracted the relevant paragraph here, with emphasis as required:

We’re also actively monitoring travelers at our land, sea, and air ports. We’re watching them for signs of illness, and we have appropriate protocols in place to deal with those who are sick. Precautions are being taken to protect travelers and border personnel. Anyone exhibiting symptoms is being referred to an isolation room where they can be evaluated by a public health official before proceeding to their destruction.

Ouch!

(To be fair to Secretary Napolitano, I do note that since I started to write this entry they’ve corrected the release so that it reads “… before proceeding to their destination.”)

Every 18th of April, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), an organization I’ve been involved with since the very early 1990s, celebrates the International Day for Monuments and Sites. This year’s theme is Heritage and Science.

Heritage and science are inextricably woven together in two distinct ways. Science and technology lead to the creation of heritage and have for many years. From ancient observatories like Kokino in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to more modern sites like Maritime Greenwich in the UK, astronomy is but one of the fields of science that has had a profound impact on heritage.

At the same time, science and technology provide insights into heritage on a scale unheard of even a century ago. Application of science and technology such as radioisotope dating like carbon dating, X-ray diffraction and information management systems to new conservation tools and techniques mean that we can learn increasing amounts of information about artefacts and the cultures they come from.

The Internet and the World Wide Web have provided incredible opportunities for people in the heritage conservation field to communicate to each other and to the public at large. My involvement with ICOMOS over the years started with the creation of a gopher server followed shortly thereafter by ICOMOS’ first website, which was one of the earliest websites on the Internet. ICOMOS was the first international heritage organization in the world to have a presence on the Internet, something I’m very proud to have had a role in. It has lead to a grassroots group concerned about the imminent demolition of a heritage property in the UK finding the information they needed to convince the authorities to revoke the demolition permit and get the property designated. A reporter in Japan wrote a series of articles about the theft of carved stones from Japanese heritage sites that appeared in a national daily newspaper, raising the profile of these thefts.

Clearly, science and technology have had a profound impact on heritage and vice versa. I encourage you to visit ICOMOS’ 18 April website at 18april.icomos.org to learn more about the International Day for Monuments and Sites.