NABET-CWA Techs Get their Day in Court against CNN

NABET-CWA technicians at CNN are finally getting their day in court some three years after the network tore up the workers' union contracts. 

About 350 field camera crew and technical workers in CNN's New York and Washington, D.C. news bureaus are making their case in an NLRB-ordered trial before an administrative law judge in Washington, D.C. The trial began in late November and will move to New York early next year to gather testimony from NABET-CWA techs there. NABET-CWA is asking the court to order CNN to restore the workers' previous contracts, recognize and bargain with their union, and reinstate techs – with back pay -- who had been terminated at the two news bureaus in 2003 and 2004.

CNN's union-busting began when the cable network dropped its long-standing contractual relationship with Team Video Services, whose NABET-CWA represented workers provided technical work for CNN. After moving the operation in house, CNN rehired some TVS workers, but to get rid of the union and its responsibility to bargain with NABET-CWA, CNN mainly packed its D.C. and N.Y. bureau with non-union technicians.

Declaring that the workers no longer had union representation, CNN immediately slashed wages, benefits and working conditions and protections. In ordering the trial, the NLRB said the network's actions violated its obligation to recognize and bargain with NABET-CWA.

"We've waited more than three years," but "these workers finally have their day in court," said NABET-CWA President John Clark. "With our nation's broken labor laws, justice can take a long time, but we're standing firmly behind the CNN technicians," he said.