Union Members Tell Hubbard Broadcasting: ‘Stop Crushing the American Dream’

Barb Kucera, editor at Workday Minnesota, describes an action by St. Paul Hubbard Broadcasting workers in support of striking New York union members.

In solidarity with New York television station workers trying to achieve a fair contract, Minnesota union members took their case directly to the station’s owner: St. Paul-based Hubbard Broadcasting.

Several dozen union members rallied this week at KSTP-Channel 5, the flagship station of Hubbard Broadcasting, which also owns WNYT-NewsChannel 13 in Albany, N.Y.

KSTP is nonunion (owner Stanley Hubbard busted a union at the station decades ago), but 90 broadcast employees and technicians at WNYT are represented by NABET-CWA Local 21. They have been without a contract since Sept. 30. Negotiations broke down over numerous management demands for concessions.

On March 4, Minnesota Communications Workers of America (CWA) State Council President Tim Lovaasen and NABET-CWA Local 411 Political Director Chuck Preston delivered a letter to Hubbard Broadcasting demanding the company bargain in good faith and withdraw its concessionary proposals, which the unions says would allow the company to:

• Lay off any worker at any time, without regard to seniority.
• Remove limits on jurisdiction, meaning workers currently covered by the union contract could be fired and replaced by staff who would be nonunion.
• Withdraw negotiated pay increases at any time.

Hubbard Broadcasting “wants to bust unions,” Lovaasen said.

They want to take away the American dream from the American worker. It’s un-American and they should be ashamed. Stanley Hubbard should be ashamed of what he’s doing to the workers in Albany, N.Y.

WNYT is the No. 1 station in the market and brought in an estimated $11 million in profit in 2006 alone, according to Local 21. As Lovaasen said:

We have worked hard to make NewsChannel 13 the No. 1 station….We are “rewarded” with less pay, benefits and no job security.

Bill Lambdin, Local 21 president in Albany, says union members there are grateful for the show of solidarity. 

The support shown us by trade unionists 1,400 miles away is truly spectacular. It will not be forgotten, by us or by the Hubbards!

For more information, visit the union’s website, Turn Off NewsChannel 13.

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