NLRB Rules Against CNN

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) reaffirmed a 2008 decision against CNN America Inc., concluding that its move to sever ties with hundreds of unionized contract workers in 2003 at the New York and Washington bureaus and replace them with non-unionized CNN staffers violated their rights.

“These workers have waited far too long for this measure of justice to finally be delivered and have suffered far too much as the result of these unlawful activities,” said Jim Joyce, president of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians-Communications Workers of America (NABET-CWA) in a news release. “CNN should finally do the right thing now and immediately comply with the orders of the National Labor Relations Board issued today.”

The Washington Post says that those orders are rather extensive. Not only did the NLRB order that CNN cease and desist from all manner of anti-union activities, but it demands that it “offer employment” to more than 100 former contract employees or “if those jobs no longer exist, to substantially equivalent positions, without prejudice to their seniority or any other rights or privileges.” Further, it orders CNN to “make whole” the entire class of affected workers — more than 300 people altogether, according to NABET-CWA — “for any loss of earnings and other benefits suffered as a result of the Respondent’s unlawful discharge of them.”

CNN and other units of Turner Broadcasting are currently undergoing cost-cutting measures and buyouts.