Candidates’ Letters Help New Hampshire TV Workers Win at WMUR

by James Parks, Dec 18, 2007

TV workers in New Hampshire are celebrating a new contract, aided by letters from six presidential candidates. Meanwhile, their union brothers and sisters in Boston are making their own news in a struggle to win a fair deal that protects good jobs in a time of increasing Internet-based broadcasting.

Members of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1228 reached a tentative agreement Dec. 12 with management of WMUR-TV in Manchester, N.H.  Last year, technicians and van operators at the station voted to join the IBEW, but management  refused to negotiate a contract—until now.

The new three-year agreement follows letters to WMUR-TV General Manager Jeff Bartlett from six Democratic presidential contenders urging the station to bargain with workers. The contract includes wage increases ranging from 18 percent to 35 percent and improvements in the pension and vacation benefits.

(We’ve posted all the letters the candidates sent on behalf of workers: Sen. Joe Biden (Del.), Sen. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.), Sen. Chris Dodd (Conn.), former Sen. John Edwards, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and New Mexico Gov. Bill  Richardson.)

Now technicians and photographers, also members of Local 1228, are fighting for job security at Boston’s WCVB-TV. The issue essentially is the same one for which network television writers have gone on strike–sharing in opportunities now available in new media.

Members of the Writers Guild are seeking a more equitable share in new media revenue, and the Boston union members are addressing management’s attempts to prevent them from working on Internet broadcasting.   

Andrew Dubrovsky, business agent for Local 1228, says:

When I started in broadcasting, we worked in film. When film went to video, we [union members] stayed with the work. As the parties continue to negotiate on a contract that expired in July, Local 1228 is demanding contract language that will similarly keep Internet broadcasting under the union’s umbrella.

In a flier distributed at a recent Christmas tree lighting and family concert in Boston Commons, the union said WCVB management displayed “baldfaced arrogance and greed” and is

doing all it can to eliminate our participation in that future under the smokescreen that technology is changing the delivery methods for news and entertainment.

Click here to learn more about the workers’ fight at WCVB.

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