SEARCH
‘Can We Bust a Union?’ Is This Some New ABC Reality Show?
 |
|
| WGAE Executive Director Mona Mangan addresses rally outside ABC headquarters. |
When you think of ABC-TV, you probably think of hit shows like “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Ugly Betty” and “Boston Legal.” But now you can add “Union Buster” to the ABC lineup.
In contract talks with the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians-CWA (NABET-CWA), management is demanding severe givebacks, including freezing pensions, which would cause workers to lose 25 percent of what they are due.
At the same time, ABC has refused for two years to bargain a contract with the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE). Last week, more than 150 ABC employees, members of NABET-CWA and WGAE, rallied outside ABC headquarters in New York City to call attention to their need for new contracts. WGAE members urged ABC to return to the bargaining table and protested the loss of 17 union jobs in Washington, D.C., last week. NABET members called for ABC to give them a fair contract when they return to the table this week.
In the talks with NABET-CWA, negotiators for ABC are demanding to freeze the workers’ pension plan at the end of this year.
NABET-CWA President John Clark said the proposed freeze
is a completely unacceptable demand on top of the many other attacks on jurisdiction, seniority and other working conditions in the company’s proposal. ABC executives want to pull the rug from under the people whose hard work, professionalism and talent make the network run. We will not stand for it.
Clark said the ABC pension plan is not only healthy but has a credit balance. Yet ABC’s proposal, according to the union’s analysis, would reduce the average plan participant’s retirement benefit by nearly 25 percent.
NABET-CWA represents some 2,500 technicians, news writers, camera operators and other employees at ABC from coast to coast. In addition to the pension freeze, the company also is proposing to allow layoffs without regard to seniority, eliminate paid meal periods and subcontract certain bargaining unit work.
The current contract expired March 31. In May, NABET-CWA members at the network overwhelmingly voted to strike if necessary.
CWA President Larry Cohen, who joined talks in May, notes ABC’s parent, Walt Disney Co., is enjoying sky-high profits and says the company should be ashamed of its assault on workers’ livelihoods.
Disney stock is up 25 percent in the last year and has a market value of $70 billion. Yet more than half of our bargaining unit is freelancers with no employment security, and management still wants more.
The WGAE-ABC national agreement, which expired Jan. 31, 2005, covers some 250 writers, editors, desk assistants, production assistants, graphic artists and researchers in New York and Washington, D.C. The two sides last met in fall 2006. That’s when ABC made what it called its last, best and final offer. The union rejected that offer because it included removing writers/producers at the network’s flagship WABC in New York City from union protection, says WGAE spokesperson Sherry Goldman.
If we accept that, it could start a domino effect. Next they would say there are too many writers. We don’t want to represent some of our members. We want to represent all our members.
 |
Become a Fan on Facebook |  |
Follow Us on Twitter |  |
Subscribe to YouTube |  |
Subscribe to Blog RSS | ||||
4 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
I have been a member of the IATSE Local 600 for 34 years. This is the same old story, Corporate greed. The producers keep the unions weak by staggering the contract experation dates. In the IA you need a majority of all the members of all the locals before we can take action. The producers can pick off one union at a time because there is no solidarity. If the Teamsters won’t cross your line you’ve won. Play some hardball with the producers now. We have a Democratic majority in congress, lets put them to work for us.
It never ceases to amaze me that the richest and most powerful companies choose to attack their union employees rather than share the wealth. If it weren’t for the hard work of all the technicians and artists, the suits wouldn’t have any content to sell and air—and yet, they continually feel the need to pick the union employee pockets to stuff their own.
Maybe we should create some solidarity with our ABC employed union folks; I’d happily agree to skip over that channel’s programming, their affiliates, and sponsors until they treat the union employees more fairly.
What is ABC afraid of?!? The WGAE should strike. Or better yet, perhaps they could secure jobs at other more union friendly stations. There’s a lot of talent at ABC. ABC will be the loser in the long run, when no one will want to work for them.
One of these days….hopefully one of these days…..the ranks and file of organized labor will do what needs to be done: Withhold its labor. Where has the [mostly immigrant] militancy gone that spearheaded our social movement? Our heritage was one in which gains were made in the streets. They were not gifts from Congress. Congress only reacted when they were forced to do so.
In “moderan times” Congress has passed legislation that allowed corporations to rob us of our pensions, and trade agreements that allowed them steal our jobs. Congress does little more than apply band aids to the heart attack of health care denial. (*18,000 of us die each year because we cannot get the medical care we need to stay alive.)
Crumbs are tossed at public education while war profiteers receive entire bakeries. 20% of our nation’s children live in poverty. The response from Congress? Raise the minimum wage to a lousy $5.85 in 2007. (Here is a fact: A family would have to earn $15.28 per hour in order to afford the typical fair market rental value of an average two-bedroom unit.)
The list is of Congressional sort-comings is a long one.
Clearly, the majority of Congress has an agenda that stands in stark contrast to the needs of the 90% of us who make up America’s working class.
What Congress cannot do, however, is stop a general strike.
Brothers and Sisters, we either hang together or most assuredly we will hang separately. Congress isn’t going to get the job done. We have to make them do what is right and moral and just. If we do not, there will be more attacks like ABC-TV’s.
Remember the words of Pastor Martin Niemoeller….”Then they came for me – and by that time no one was left to speak up”.
*According to the Institue of Medicine