Labor & Employment Law

NBC Must See TV Workers? Right to Fair Contract

By Mike Hall

The fall line-up on NBC’s “Must See TV” could end up featuring keyboard playing cats, video fishbowls and turtles doing things you’d rather not see turtles do, if the network doesn’t reach a contract agreement with its 3,000 technicians and news writers.

The tongue-in-cheek fall lineup was just posted last week by National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians-CWA (NABET-CWA) Local 11, which has been trying to reach an agreement with NBC since its last contract expired in April, 2009.

The website was launched to coincide with the networks’ annual unveiling of their fall schedules for advertisers, known as upfronts. The scary offerings on NABET/CWA’s upfronts parody make 50’s era Soviet TV seem scintillating. But the silliness makes a serious point, says Local 11 President Ed McEwan.

“The upfronts are about promoting NBC’s new seasons. By jeopardizing the careers of thousands of talented men and women across the country with damaging company proposals, there might not be a new season that NBC can be proud of. Senior NBC executives need to recognize this and tell their negotiators to come back with a fair deal for everyone.”

McEwan says the union’s main goal is to protect job security from the network’s attempts to dismantle how technical and news writing work is assigned, so that NBC’s employees who primarily perform those tasks are allowed to remain in the union.

Along with the spoof website, NBET/CWA is using online advertising and text messaging to promote its outreach efforts. Updates on NABET-CWA’s campaign are available by texting FALL to 228466 or by registering your cell phone number at the new website.

Check out the upfronts page here and let’s hope they reach deal, because you don’t really want to explain to your kids what those turtles are doing.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on May 24, 2010 (boomark / email).