Tentative Deal Reached at NBC Universal
January 12, 2012
A long campaign of solidarity for NABET-CWA members at NBC Universal has paid off, as the union and company reached a tentative agreement this week with wage and job security improvements. The last contract expired March 31, 2009.
"Our members have waited three years to have a decent contract offer on the table," 
NABET-CWA President James Joyce said. "Through their solidarity and the diligence of the union's negotiating committee, we were able to obtain significant improvements from NBC's previous offer."
Joyce added, "I am confident that now, one year after the Comcast merger, and with this contract in place, as NBC Universal horizons expand, our members' work opportunities will expand."
The tentative contract is the result of numerous bargaining sessions over the past three weeks in New York and has the unanimous recommendation of the union's bargaining team, Joyce said.
The contract applies to about 2,500 staff and daily-hire employees working as broadcast technicians, newswriters, building, air conditioning and plant maintenance personnel, staging services personnel and couriers at various NBC network and local TV station operations in New York, Chicago, Burbank and Washington D.C., as well as NBC News and NBC Sports. The new contract will run through March 31, 2015.
The contract offers wage increases over the next three years in addition to a signing bonus upon ratification. In the area of job security, the contract provides numerous layoff protections for staff employees and calls for the conversion of a number of daily-hire jobs into full-time staff positions.
NABET-CWA locals will be holding membership meetings in preparation for ratification votes over the next few weeks. Joyce said votes will be tallied by February 10.
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IT'S A NEW DAY ON AIR WAY!
January 1, 2012
The champagne corks you heard popping last night were not just to welcome in the new year. Midnight marked the official transition of KGTV to a new owner: The E.W. Scripps Company.
For Channel 10 employees and the community at large, it's the difference between 
night and day as integrity and other essential core values return to KGTV after a long absence.
For Local 54 members, it marks the beginning of the end of a 6-year battle to negotiate a fair contract with the station — a contract that has been in place since 1953.
"NABET-CWA and Scripps have a long history and worked together to ease the transition between owners, which brought immediate benefits to our represented employees," Local 54 President Dennis Csillag said. "We welcome Scripps Media to a city that has borne the family name for well over 100 years."
Vice-President Robert Buchanan said, "We're working to quickly restore the partnership we've had with four previous owners which will help return KGTV to the success it deserves."
The Local 54 Executive Board and union members remain solidly committed to negotiating a 
fair and equitable agreement with Scripps to replace the contract that expired in 2006 for workers at KGTV.
Scripps lists its core values as: compassion,
courage,
excellence,
fairness,
integrity and respect. The company says, "These core values represent our commitment at Scripps to the highest ethical principles. Our values guide each of the actions we take and decisions we make."
Local 54 leaders put a hold on the mobilization campaign for a fair contract after Scripps President and CEO Rich Boehne and Senior Vice President of Television Brian Lawlor said they would resolve the issues created by McGraw-Hill's 6-year union-busting campaign.
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More News | Learn More: E.W. Scripps Company | Scripps Has Rich San Diego History
San Diego Free Speech Fight Marks 100 Years
December 16, 2011
2012 is the 100-year anniversary of the San Diego Free Speech Fight, one of the most important moments in the history of the city.
During the winter and spring of 1912, members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and their allies in labor and the community engaged in a pitched battle against a new city ordinance 
that banned public speaking in downtown San Diego.
During the course of this struggle, many were arrested, beaten, and even killed for asserting their rights to public speech and assembly— the simple right to stand on a soapbox and speak.
The response to what started as an organizing drive for the local IWW turned into a national cause to defend the rights of ordinary working people and citizens of all classes to free speech, with thousands of people flooding into San Diego, defying the ban, and filling the jails in protest.
The enemies of free speech at the time included many in local government, business and the press, and free speech fighters were the victims of violence at the hands of the local police as well as torture by vigilantes.
While the repression shut down the soap-boxers temporarily, the right to free speech was eventually restored to San Diegans in 1915 when the ban was overturned and legal picketing was established as a basic right.
Today, those who enjoy the right to assemble, protest, and speak in public in San Diego have the Free Speech League of the Progressive Era to thank for fighting to maintain basic rights for all San Diegans. The legacy of this time lived on in every labor and civil rights fight that followed.
The San Diego Labor Council and ACLU are commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Free Speech Fight with a celebration of the triumphs of local labor and civil rights activism and a reminder that if we are not active in the protection of our rights, we can lose them.
The events include:
January 6th
Exhibit Opening Event, Centro Cultural de la Raza, Balboa Park
January 26th
100th Year Anniversary Celebration, Saville Theatre, San Diego City College
February 8th
Commemoration at the original site of the fight, 5th and E Street, Downtown San Diego
February 20th
San Diego Free Speech Fight Forum, Auditorium of the School of Leadership & Education Sciences building at the University of San Diego
Click here to read more and view a photo gallery from 1912.
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Learn More: E.W. Scripps Company
Recent industry articles about The E.W. Scripps Company:
Scripps To Offer Second Screen App
Broadcast TV viewers may soon be able to sync up their tablets and other computers with whatever show they are watching and tap into related information and swap comments with friends watching at the same time. That's the "second screen" service envisioned by 10 TV station groups and ConnecTV, an Emeryville, Calif.-based startup that has developed the enabling app.
Many Winners In The Scripps Station Buy
The good citizens of Denver, Indianapolis, San Diego and Bakersfield, Calif., are in for a nice surprise. Sometime next year, Scripps will take over the McGraw-Hill ABC affiliates in those four markets and re-energize their underperforming newscasts.
Scripps Sees Good Fit For Its New Stations
The $212 million purchase of the McGraw-Hill TV 
group will boost Scripps' U.S. coverage to 13% and make it the country's largest owner of ABC affiliates. And it also gives it five low-power Spanish-language stations. Brian Lawlor, Scripps' SVP of the TV division, says his company made the deal because the new stations are "a really comfortable fit" in terms of culture, geography and size. He talks about the plans to make the most of this new opportunity, the company's first major station purchase in 20 years.
Scripps Merges All TV, Paper Digital Efforts
The E.W. Scripps Co. on Monday launched a reorganization of its digital operations, putting all resources under one umbrella in a move, it said, to accelerate the launch of new products and services for quickly evolving digital platforms.
Scripps Bucks Investigative Reporting Trend
In the last year and a half, Scripps Television has made new hires and put existing staffers through special training as part of a concerted effort to improve investigative reporting at its nine news-producing stations. "It's about serving your community and providing them with journalism and stories they need to know about," says Bob Sullivan, a former Scripps station news director who, after a hiatus from TV news, rejoined the company in January 2010, in part to lead the effort.
Scripps Intros Live Streaming To Mobile
The new solution works with HTML5, Flash and native application protocols to bring seamless live mobile viewing experience to Scripps' nine TV markets.
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Scripps Has Rich San Diego History
October 18, 2011
While NABET-CWA and KGTV have a long and fruitful history dating back to 1953, the Scripps family arrived more than half a century earlier.
In 1873, Ellen Browning Scripps (1836-1932) helped her brother James start The Detroit News, where she pioneered the concept of the feature article. Meanwhile, her half-brother Edward Willis Scripps (1854-1926) 
founded what would become a powerful chain of newspapers.
Ellen
moved to La Jolla in 1896, where she gave to many causes and was an early supporter of the San Diego Zoo.
In 1924, while recovering from a broken hip, she became interested in medicine and founded what are now The Scripps Research Institute, Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla and Scripps Clinic.
Her La Jolla residence was purchased by a group of artists in 1939, remodeled and opened as the Art Center in La Jolla, now known as the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.
The San Diego City Schools named Ellen Browning Scripps Elementary School, which opened in 2001, in her honor.
E.W. Scripps started or acquired some 25 newspapers, the beginning of a media empire that is now the E. W. Scripps Company. Believing in autonomy, he let local editors run their local papers. Among his industry innovations were distributing newspapers to the suburbs and getting the bulk of income from advertisers instead of subscribers. He once said if you were doing the job right, sooner or later you would upset an advertiser and lose some revenue.
In 1898, he built a winter home on a ranch he bought northeast of San Diego. He eventually lived there year round, conducting newspaper business from his home. The ranch encompassed what is today the community of Scripps Ranch as well as Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. (Local 54 members have handbilled KGTV advertisers on that land.)
In 1903, E.W. and Ellen were the founding donors of the San Diego Marine Biological Association, now known as the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
To the E.W. Scripps Company, NABET-CWA Local 54 says: Welcome home!
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