Boycott Update
AGENDA would like to draw your attention to some corporate scofflaws who do not deserve your business. This month's bad actor is WJBK-Fox TV 2 in Detroit.
The National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, a sector of the Communications Workers of America (NABEY-CWA), Local 43, represents the technicians, videographers and editors that work at Fox TV 2. These men and women are struggling to negotiate a fair contract.
In 1989, junk-bond king George Gillett thought he could break NABET-CWA, Local 43. But after an aggressive boycott campaign that was widely supported by the Metro Detroit community, Gillett and his notorious union-busting lawyers were beaten. The result was a fair contract and six years of cooperative union-management relations and equitable working conditions.
In 1995, Corporate mogul Ron Perlman, who is worth an estimated $5 billion and whose holdings include Revlon Cosmetics, Marvel Comics, Coleman Outdoor Equipment, First Nationwide Bank and Consolidated Cigar, added TV 2 to his New World Communications chain of television stations. Perlman shortly thereafter replaced the Vice President of Broadcasting and the President and General Manager with personnel more hostile to the union. The true intentions of the new management became clear when contract negotiations began.
Now, in 1996, Perlman has hired the same lawyers that Gillett thought could bust the union in 1989. Some of the issues are different this time around but the intention seems to be the same. Right now, your help is needed to get Fox TV 2's attention and their commitment to negotiate a fair contract. Local 43's contract proposals include a pay increase that would enable its members to keep pace with rising costs, and a meaningful training program for those operating recently acquired technical equipment.
The company's contract proposals taken together constitute a program to dismantle the union in three years or less. Just look at some of Fox TV 2's outrageous demands:
- Replacement of the current automatic pay increase with a system based on annual evaluations ("merit pay"). These totally subjective evaluations could also be used as the basis for discipline and discharge and the results would not be subject to arbitration.
- That NABET-CWA members relinquish the right to refuse to cross another union's picket lines.
- Reduction or even termination - unilaterally by the Company - of group insurance and/or retirement benefits for workers without bargaining or even consulting with the union.
- Possible replacement of full-time workers with part-time and subcontracted workers (Fox TV 2 even admits that it would use part-timers to replace full-time workers).
- That work in a new editing technology, called "non-linear editing," be assigned to anyone without limitations. NABET-CWA editors currently edit video and audio for broadcast purposes. This proposal could affect about one-third of NABET's members.
- That the union accept, on behalf of its members, a new "Company Code of Conduct." This sweeping "Code" asserts the company's right to place unprecedented responsibilities on employees and even extend to making employees responsible for the conduct of relatives!
In exchange for these "concessions" the company offers a "no-layoff guarantee" for NABET-CWA employees who began working there prior to 1986. However, this would expire at the end of the term of the contract. Also, it would not apply to the results of unsatisfactory merit pay evaluations.
NABET-CWA members are angered by these unwarranted attacks on their union and are insulted by Fox TV 2's attitude and lack of appreciation for their loyalty and dedication. The union has vowed to fight back.
How can you help? do not patronize Fox TV 2's advertisers. Write Ron Perlman at: FOX TV 2, 16550 W. Nine Rd., Southfield, MI 48075, and let him know you will boycott his advertisers until he begins to bargain in good faith. Display a bumper sticker, too. Call (810) 557-0735 to lend your support.