An administrative law judge has ruled in favor of a union representing employees at Stephens Media Group’s upstate New York radio stations. At the heart of the ruling — voice-tracking.
The company will have to rehire employees in both Watertown, where it has four stations, and Massena, where it has one. Stephens will also have to pay the employees for the wages they lost when they were let go.
And, to add insult to injury, the stations will have to hang signs that say: “We Violated Federal Labor Law.”
The union says employees were laid off during contract negotiations and as the company was changing from live jocks to voice-tracking. The 58-page court ruling is filled with drama, including a General Manager that had to take an anger management course, an accusation that a GM asked a union employee to cross a picket line, a morning man who fell asleep several times while on the air and didn’t show up to remotes, and, a lot of discussion about voice-tracking. Here’s some of that discussion from the ruling: “SMG Watertown’s decision to implement voice tracking and eliminate live broadcasting for certain of its radio broadcasts was not a change in the scope and direction of its business. The company was not privileged to unilaterally lay off unit employees, reduce their work hours, or transfer bargaining-unit work to non-unit employees because of voice-tracking. The company’s unilateral changes violated Section 8(a)(5).”
Stephens Media Group owner David Stephens tells Radio Ink he plans to appeal some of the findings. “Many of the findings by the ALJ were anticipated and will be appealed. However, we are very encouraged by some of the credibility determinations the ALJ made on witnesses for both sides.
“As well, the ALJ DID NOT FIND that SMG engaged in surface level bargaining and instead bargained in good faith, denying the union’s claims to the contrary.
“To the determent of the current union employees in Watertown and Massena, the union has refused to bargain with the company since October 2018. Thus, discussion on wage increases and employee benefits for union members are non-existent.
“While the union’s claims meander their way through the courts on appeal, we should work together on a new collective bargaining agreement for the benefit of union employees currently working at the stations. But this will never happen if the union continually refuses to bargain.”
The judge’s ruling must be affirmed by the National Labor Relations Board.
You obviously didn’t read my comment fully. And just because in the past no one challenged whatever call letters you want to reference, by no means guarantees that there will not be license challenges to iHeart stations.
IHeart’s priority right now is to make their top executives wealthier. And iHeart is committed to debt servicing, whereas a local broadcaster would be committed to community servicing.
Wow. With this legal precedent plus potential license challenges against corporate ownership groups for failing to serve the local community with LOCAL personalities and local news/content… stay tuned!
“License challenges” by whom? There is no FCC rule requiring local personalities.
Bob, just because there is no “rule”, that does not guarantee that you and iHeart are guaranteed your license renewals. In any market, well-heeled investors with good political contacts could very well decide to challenge and go after iHeart station licenses. In Syracuse for example, a challenging group could argue that iHeart with billions of dollars still in debt, is financially unfit and unable to properly serve the Syracuse market, and the challenging group would offer to provide more and better local programmimg.
An excellent reply.
Way to dodge the question. No one is challenging any licenses on this basis, and if they did, there is no legal precedent of the FCC ever denying a license based on the number of local DJs. I know owners in upper NYS and many of those small local owners get their programming from satellite networks. No one has challenged their licenses either. Many years ago, one of the top rated stations in Syracuse was WKFM (now WBBS). At the time the station was totally programmed by reel to reel tapes at an office in Watertown. No one ever challenged WKFM’s license for operating as a totally automated station with no human involvement.
See my reply above at 1020pm.
“iHeart is committed to debt servicing, whereas a local broadcaster would be committed to community servicing.”
Let’s stick with Syracuse a moment. iHeart has four of the Top 5 stations in the market. They’re kicking the behinds of the other local owners. WBBS is killing WOLF. They use their market leading position to raise millions of dollars for local charities. This is how the stations serve their community. The debt is at the corporate owner, not the local stations. They’re making money. There is no way the FCC is going to take away licenses from such successful stations. And if there was someone in the town looking for stations, they could have bought the old Buckley stations or Galaxy stations that were available.
Your whole argument sounds like wishful thinking. You wish someone else would spend their money and time to do something that has no chance of winning. If you thought it would be successful, why not make the challenge yourself?