In The News: NLRB to Try CNN for Voiding Workers' Union Contracts

After a three-year fight, the NLRB has supported charges by NABET-CWA that CNN illegally abrogated the contracts of 350 field camera crews and other technical workers at its news operations in New York and Washington, D.C.

The board's general counsel has ordered a hearing on the case this September and will press for an order for CNN to restore the previous contractual provisions, recognize and bargain with the union, and reinstate with back pay the many union workers who had been terminated.

In late 2003, CNN dropped its long-standing contractual relationship with Team Video Services, whose union-represented workers gathered news for the cable network, and shifted the operation in-house.  It then rehired management and non-union workers from TVS workers, but not union members. At that point, CNN declared that the workers no longer had representation, slashing wages, benefits and other working conditions and protections.

"CNN expanded and packed the D.C. and New York units in order to avoid a successorship obligation to recognize and bargain," said the board. "Although this ruling has been a long time coming, we're gratified and confident that the board's decision will finally put us on a path to justice for these CNN workers," said NABET-CWA President John Clark. The affected workers are members of Local 51011 in New York and Local 52031 in Washington, DC.