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 owners 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. “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 last 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. On today’s labor calendar, the Economic Policy Institute is hosting a discussion on “The Politics of Trade and the Midterm Elections” and noon today; for details and all the latest local labor calendar listings, go to dclabor.org and click on Calendar. In today’s labor history, on this date in 1950, the mostly Mexican-American members of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union Local 890 in Bayard, New Mexico began the "Salt of the Earth" strike. Strikers' wives walked picket lines for seven months when their husbands were enjoined during the 14-month strike against the New Jersey Zinc Company. Today’s labor quote is by Esperanza Quintero, a character in “The Salt of the Earth” film, portrayed by actress Rosaura Revueltas. Esperanza Quintero, who said: 'Whose neck shall I stand on to make me feel superior, and what will I have out of it? I don't want anything lower than I am. I am low enough already. I want to rise and to push everything up with me as I go"
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