FTVLive has always found it strange when a union that reps workers inside a TV station asks viewers to stop watching said station.

That is what is going down in St. Louis.

Today IBEW Local 4 that represents broadcast engineers, photographers and editors in every station in St. Louis, is asking viewers to stop watching KSDK the Gannett owned station in the city.

The union says that during the first contract negotiation, Gannett informed the Local 4 that it was going to refuse talking unless the men and women of KSDK agree to giving up all rights to their jobs. In other words, allow KSDK to hire anybody at any pay-rate to come in and do the job of a photographer/editor/engineer.

IBEW says that what's worse is that during the economic downturn, Gannett asked these same men and women to take a 10% cut in pay and agree to furloughs. This was agreed to by those men and women in order to be team players and help the company. Now that we are a few years into a great economy and with growth on the books, Gannett refuses to give back and wants to get rid of them all together.

IBEW Local 4 has launched a campaign to "Turn Off KSDK" saying that they hope to get the station's attention and back to negotiations.

Here's the union's website asking viewers to not watch the station.