Members of the union representing workers at WNEM have rejected the latest offer from the Meredith owned Saginaw, MI, CBS affiliate.
“WNEM’s latest contract proposal would severely jeopardized (sic) workers’ job security, retirement security, work jurisdiction and reduce on-air employees to ‘at will’ employment status,” Zara Maldonado, president of NABET-CWA Local 54048, said in a statement.
Maldonado told TVSpy, “Meredith is doing fine economically, and these demands are unnecessarily delaying reaching an agreement on a fair contract.”
The two sides have been working on a deal for nearly a year and half. The current contract expires November 3.
According to MLive.com, the 50 WNEM employees represented by NABET Local 54048 include photographers, editors, directors, on-air talent and engineers.
The NABET Local president also laid out plans to hit WNEM where it lives by asking for a boycott of the station and its advertisers from community members and even public officials. “In addition to requesting that WNEM return to the table, our members believe that the WNEM viewing audience, and enterprises which advertise on WNEM, need to be informed that Meredith is not interested in serving the community,” said Maldonado. “They are only interested in serving their corporate greed.”
A Meredith spokesperson refused to comment on the contract negotiations.