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Shop Talk: Channel 11's Jennings seeks to decertify union at WPXI
Sunday, May 27, 2001 By Jim McKay
Television reporter Alan Jennings led a successful drive to decertify the union that represented on-air talent at WTAE-TV four years ago. Now he's trying to oust the same labor organization from WPXI, his current employer.
Jennings filed a decertification petition with the National Labor Relations Board last Thursday seeking the removal of the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists as the bargaining agent for 32 WPXI employees who work as news staff and announcers.
The petition said Jennings had the support of 30 percent or more of the staff. He declined to return telephone calls seeking comment. John Howell, WPXI's general manager, also declined comment.
"This is a matter between those employees and their union, and I really don't have anything to say about it. Nor do I want to," Howell said. "It's sort of their issue."
AFTRA's contract with WPXI expired at the end of last year, and the news staff has been working under an extension of the agreement while negotiations continue, said Mark Wirick, executive director of AFTRA's Pittsburgh local.
Wirick called the negotiations difficult and said the station is "completely unreasonable" on work assignments and "keeps stalling" on key issues of work load, compensation for overtime and additional duties.
Before Jennings left for WPXI in late 1997, the WTAE news staff voted 14 to 12 to oust AFTRA in February of that year and the decertification became official in August after the union failed to convince the labor board that the voting atmosphere was unfair.
A decertification at WPXI, if it happens, would be a blow to AFTRA. The union also represents news staff at KDKA, but not at WPGH. It claims about 600 members, half of whom work for radio and TV stations. The rest are free-lance performers.
The NLRB will hold a hearing on the petition before scheduling a vote.
"We're looking at this as an opportunity to reorganize this union," AFTRA's Wirick said. "If that doesn't happen, obviously it has consequences for the market as well as the local."
Better here than elsewhere
Pittsburgh can expect a "brisk" hiring season during the third quarter, according to a survey of employers by Manpower Inc.
The temporary help firm said 43 percent of the Pittsburgh companies it interviewed plan to add employees during the quarter while 17 percent intend to cut jobs.
A year ago, 27 percent of the local employers surveyed thought adding workers was likely and none were intending to cut back.
The Pittsburgh results are more positive than a national survey, in which 27 percent of 16,000 employers told Manpower they plan to add staff compared with 35 percent a year ago. Nine percent of the employers surveyed nationally expect to cut jobs, and 64 percent see no change or are undecided.
"There are pockets of encouragement. Why it's us this time, I don't know," said Barbara Hughes, a spokeswoman for Manpower in Pittsburgh. Manpower will not say how many employers it polls in Pittsburgh, citing confidentiality. It maintains that the survey, a telephone poll of public and private employers in 488 cities, is statistically valid.
The survey follows other signs that the region is faring better than the rest of the nation on the economic front. Recent statistics show local payrolls continuing to expand, even as employment has been declining nationally, and local home sales jumped in April even as they fell nationwide.
New prison workers union
A newly formed union that won the right to represent 9,500 correctional employees at 26 state prisons is assembling a staff and preparing to enter contract negotiations.
The Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association last week ousted the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees in an election overseen by the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board. PSCOA received 4,881 votes compared to 3,585 for AFSCME.
The election will reduce AFSCME's membership among state government employees by about 10 percent. The union has about 90,000 state employees as members and had bargained for prison guards for nearly 30 years.
"Obviously, we're very disappointed and somewhat perplexed," said AFSCME spokesman Russ Keating. "We feel we've done the best we can, the best we could have done."
The current AFSCME contract covering correctional officers expires June 30, but guards are not legally permitted to strike. The starting salary is about $21,000 a year and top scale exceeds $51,000.
AFSCME recently negotiated a replacement contract with general pay increases of 11 percent over three years plus other increases. That agreement is now shelved.
The PSCOA , which started as a watchdog group three years ago, will hire field agents, office staff and prepare to organize local affiliates, said spokesman Denny Hoover. Its law firm, Philadelphia-based Sagot, Jennings & Sigmond, has experience representing state police.
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