NABET-CWA and NBC Network Agree to Early Talks; Disney/ABC Seeks Return to Bargaining Table

In an unprecedented move, NABET-CWA and the NBC network - the U.S. leader among television viewers - have agreed to early contract negotiations.

NABET-CWA President John Clark, a vice president of CWA, said that the parties have agreed "to attempt a streamlined approach" to the talks, which will formally begin Sept. 15 at 30 Rockefeller Center in New York City.

NABET-CWA Network Coordinator John Krieger said the union agreed to the company's suggestion of early negotiations with the expectation that it would be "in the members' best interests to reach an early agreement, if that's possible."

The talks are set for Sept. 15, 16 and 17. The current four-year contract doesn't expire until March 31, 1999. NABET-CWA represents about 2,500 technicians, cameramen, news writers and others at the network and four owned-and-operated stations. Sitting with Clark and Krieger on the NABET-CWA side of the table will be Michael Queen, a member of Local 31, which represents workers at WRC-TV in Washington, D.C.; Lenny Duge, vice president of Local 53, which represents workers at KNBC, Burbank, Calif.; Ray Taylor, president of Local 41, which represents workers at WMAQ, Chicago, and Lou Fallot, president of Local 11, which represents workers at WNBC, New York City.

Union negotiators will assemble in Washington beginning Sept. 9 to formalize proposals to present to NBC, Krieger said.

The talks at NBC come in the midst of the union's lengthy battles to wrest a new contract from Disney/ABC. That contract expired March 31, 1997, and the parties are still far apart, according to Krieger. He said that the union bargaining committee - responding to a request from ABC management to resume talks - has told the company they will be available beginning Sept. 22.

At the last meeting between NABET-CWA and Disney/ABC, on July 28, management rejected a series of counter proposals offered by the union. After the company rejected the union's package, Krieger declared, "We have handed you an olive branch and you picked it up and smacked us over the head with it."

NABET-CWA'S "counter proposals contained significant modifications from some of our earlier proposals," Krieger said, "so we were disheartened by management's outright rejection."

The union's package included concessions in such areas as pension contributions, health care benefits and daily hires, Krieger said. At the same time, the union proposed language that would provide additional job security, protect health care benefits, establish a new "Retiree Health Care Reimbursement Trust Fund," maintain the 30-percent daily hire premium and enhance training opportunities.

Detroit Talks Resume After Two-Year Hiatus

The leaders of six locked-out unions in Detroit - including members of CWA's Newspaper Guild and printing, publishing and media workers sector - are meeting with management of the city's two daily newspapers for the first time in more than 20 months.

The meetings mark the only time that all the parties in the bitter 37-month labor dispute have met since a two-hour session in Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer's office in October 1996.

Brian Flores, a former administrative officer of the Washington-Baltimore unit of the Newspaper Guild, and now a senior mediator with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services, was instrumental in getting the parties back together. Flores had met intermittently with both parties since the strike started.

The talks resumed on Aug. 10 and were still continuing in late August, sources said.

"This doesn't mean everything is fixed, but the fact they are willing to get together is always a positive sign," said Dave Helfert, a spokesman for the FMCS. "The FMCS is going to do everything we can to help these two parties reach an agreement," he added. About 2,000 workers walked out at Knight Ridder's Detroit Free Press and Gannett's Detroit News on July 13, 1995. The National Labor Relations Board later upheld the unions' charges that management had provoked the strike with a series of unfair labor practices.

In February 1997, even as the NLRB was considering the unions' charges, the unions offered to return to work unconditionally but management refused to take the workers back, as required by federal labor law.

The prolonged strike has polarized the Detroit community, cost the newspapers 300,000 subscribers and sparked a series of pro-union, labor-supported demonstrations and rallies from Washington, D.C., to Miami, Fla., to Los Angeles, Calif.