From the Folks Who Created USA Today
I am a union representative with 32 years of experience in the labor movement. I have watched the percentage of private sector unionization be cut in about a third during my "career." Unless something changes, we will be done in the next decade or two.
My union is called the International Alliance of Stage and Theatrical Workers (IATSE) Local 600. We represent people in the entertainment, news and commercial production industries. This is the summary of a campaign that that we are starting now in the Pacific Northwest.
Gannett’s Non Jurisdictional Contract Proposal
Gannett bought the Belo Corporation late in 2013, acquiring 23 TV stations, including KGW in Portland and KING in Seattle. IATSE, SAG-AFTRA and IBEW represent a combined total of about 175 employees at those stations, including on-air personnel, photographers, editors and broadcast engineers. Five of the six bargaining units are in negotiations as of now, and the IATSE photographer unit at KING will start negotiations in a few months.
Gannett has put on all of its union bargaining tables across the country, including Portland and Seattle, this language:
“Amend and replace current jurisdiction with non-exclusive jurisdiction language, including insertion of subcontracting and amend contract throughout in order to conform to a non-exclusive jurisdiction operation.”
The four relevant local unions representing KGW and KING have formed a coalition to resist this union busting language. Our respective memberships feel very strongly that this is a career destroying concept that has but one purpose -- to replace union work with non-union work.
The Coalition will be conducting a series of public events to call attention to what Gannett calls its "business model" -- a ruthless cost cutting regime that follows the example of Gannett's prime property, USA Today. In addition to cutting benefits and eliminating union jobs, other cost cutting measures are handcuffing the remaining staff, and the product is deteriorating.
TV stations are NOT simply profit making "assets." TV stations operate by license from the Federal Government to broadcast in the public interest. During snow, ice, storms, fires, earthquakes and civil unrest, the public's interest is in getting accurate news about what is happening at that moment. Gannett's business model abandons the public interest in favor of low or unpaid amateurs.
The Coalition will be asking other unions, faith based organizations, public interest advocacy groups and all like-minded friends to attend our events and to participate in demonstrations that will take place in the spring and summer of 2015.
We raise this question –
If Gannett succeeds at getting the non-jurisdictional language in all of its operations from coast to coast, do you think that it will stop there?
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Related to this labor dispute is a little known initiative by the Federal Communications Commission -- called a Frequency Auction. Over the air television uses lower frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum. This bandwidth is coveted by the cell phone companies and internet providers. So our government is attempting to facilitate the transfer from local TV to those profit making corporations through a government sponsored auction of frequency ranges.
There are at least a couple of problems with this scheme.
First, FCC TV and radio licenses are provided free of charge to broadcasters who are obligated by law to operate in the public interest. This scheme allows companies to sell this gift from the government at a profit, yet another example of public assets being privatized. I am outraged by this premise, and our campaign will attempt to advise the public of this travesty.
Second, while it is easy to mock television -- and it deserves it -- during local emergencies, local TV is the most important means of people finding out what is happening right now. Whether it is a flood or an earthquake or ice storm, local TV meets its Federal mandate by deploying cameras and skilled professionals throughout the community to report on current conditions. This requires a minimal infrastructure of locally based news operations.
If a company like Gannett can buy a local TV station and then make a killing liquidating it as an "asset" and transferring it to an internet provider, there is no way that it can provide the vital information in times of crisis.
We are lining up support for our campaign -- I ask the DU community for your thoughts on the line of argument we are developing.
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