The CBC has locked out the 5,500 members of the Canadian Media Guild after last-minute bargaining went nowhere.

"We are now officially locked out," said a message posted at 12:05 a.m. EDT Monday on the union's hotline. "There are no plans at this time for any further talks with the corporation."

While the bargaining committee will stay in Toronto for a few days to see if negotiations can be restarted, "given the aggressive position management has taken at the table, however, we think it's unlikely we'll hear from them," it said.

"This is not a good day for Canadian broadcasting," said Lise Lareau, president of the union, which represents producers, newsroom staff and technicians at the public broadcaster.

"This is a very grave step, and the decision was not undertaken lightly, but only after a great deal of serious reflection, and with the profound conviction that there was no other course of action open to us," said a CBC news release.

"The world is changing, and we have to change with it, in order to remain relevant and competitive, and to continue offering strong public broadcasting services that Canadians value. In order to do that, our employment model must also evolve."

Outsourcing the issue

The main issue of dispute between the two sides is outsourcing.

The CBC claims it needs more flexibility to hire new staff on a contract basis, as opposed to making them staff employees.

However, the union said 30 per cent of the CBC's workforce is already non-permanent, which gives the corporation plenty of flexibility.

The corporation issued a 72-hour lockout warning early Friday if a deal couldn't be reached.

The highest profile locked-out employee is Peter Mansbridge, anchor of The National, the main television newscast.

Radio listeners will hear a single national morning show on Monday morning. TV newscasts will be pared down.

However, the corporation has said programming on all three of its platforms -- radio, television and the Internet -- will continue.

"The truth is it is still going to be a reasonably interesting service, but it's not going to be the service we hoped to offer Canadians," said Richard Stursberg, executive vice-president of CBC Television.

Lareau said the union is hoping to launch an Internet operation of some as-yet undefined type to provide an alternative to CBC broadcasts.

The current contract expired more than one year ago. Last month, the guild's members voted 87.3 per cent in favour of giving their negotiators a strike mandate.

Some CBC employees in Quebec and Moncton, N.B. won't be affected by the lockout because they are represented by different unions.

About 10 per cent of the CBC workforce isn't unionized.

CBC hasn't been hit by a major labour dispute since 2001, when management locked out the technical staff.

While members of ACTRA, the actors' union, will not perform CBC work during the dispute, that shouldn't be a major factor as many shows are not currently in production.