Members of Congress stand with WUSA-9 workers, urge station to bargain in good faith

As IBEW Local 1200 marks a year battling for a fair contract at CBS-affiliate WUSA-9, members of Congress and other area leaders are urging the station’s corporate owners Tegna Inc. to show its workers the respect they deserve at the bargaining table. “We encourage you to negotiate in good faith to come to a resolution that includes a fair wage and benefit package,” U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen and Benjamin Cardin of Maryland said in a letter to station manager Richard Dyer in September, and D.C., Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton urged “a speedy, positive agreement.” Despite the local’s compromises and concessions over the course of 16 bargaining sessions, including five with a mediator, Tegna, formerly Gannett, has refused to discuss any of the union’s proposals. “Not interested” has been chief negotiator Tim Fair’s stock response. “Everything we’ve proposed, it’s been ‘no, no, no,’” Local 1200 Business Manager Ken Brown said. The WUSA-9 unit, which includes nearly 40 technicians, camera operators, editors and other employees, has been working under an expired contract since November. The National Labor Relations Board is investigating Local 1200’s unfair labor practice charge, along with a shop steward’s charges of management harassment over the past year. Read more here 
photo: IBEW 1200 unit members at WUSA-9

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