Local Hamilton news channel CHCH axed its workers, closed, and then re-formed as a new company to free itself from its union, an email from an employee obtained by the Star suggests.

In a Dec. 14 message that appears to be sent to a prospective client, CHCH account manager Kathleen Marks says the restructuring would create a new station where “changes could be made, free from old Union employees and their demands and free from carryover debt of Canwest.”

The restructuring would allow CHCH to live on as a news channel while allowing management to “hire new talent and bring on more daytime programming that will appeal to a wider demographic,” the email continues.

“Personally, I am very excited about the new face of CHCH,” says Marks, concluding with a smiley-face emoticon.

CHCH declared bankruptcy on Friday and slashed all of its 165 employees. Eighty-one have since been offered positions with the new company.

Marks did not return multiple requests for comment, but in an interview with the Star, the vice-president of parent company Channel Zero Chris Fuoco called her comments “regrettable and unfortunate.”

“What you have there is an employee that shared a personal opinion. It’s not the position of the company, it’s not the position of the ownership,” he said.

Fuoco told the Star the decision to restructure CHCH was an effort to shore up the channel’s troubled finances. He said the company had been open with employees and their union, Unifor, about the scale of the business’s fiscal challenges.

But Liz Marzari, a national rep with Unifor, said the move to shutter CHCH “absolutely came as a shock” to union representatives and workers alike.

“It was a terrible way to treat dedicated talented, hard-working employees a few weeks before Christmas,” she said.

Because the company declared bankruptcy, workers do not automatically receive severance and will have to go through the federal wage-earner protection program to try to recover their pay.

The union said it expected to remain as the representative for employees, since the new station is performing the same role as CHCH. The channel aired its first newscast since shuttering on Monday.

Under Ontario law, businesses must honour existing collective agreements when they take over a company unless they dramatically change the nature of the work being performed.

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“We’ve asked (Channel Zero) to voluntarily recognize the union, but they have not committed to doing that,” Marzari said.

Fuoco said the company would meet with Unifor Wednesday to discuss the restructuring.