Description

MEDIA CONGLOMERATES ATTACK UNIONS, SLASH JOBS
The conglomerates have slashed jobs overall, converted full-timers to part-timers, and combined
jobs. The result is too many conflicting demands on the few workers who are left, resulting in a
lower-quality news product. Twenty-five years ago, most jobs at the major media networks, and
their owned-and-operated stations in the largest markets, were unionized. But year after year, the
media conglomerates have fought to weaken union contracts, including NABET and IBEW as well
as WGA contracts, in order to add more temporary and part-time workers and reduce full-time
staff positions. Another key demand from companies has been to remove union jurisdiction rules
to increase the number of workers holding multiple job titles at the same time. For example,
where in the past, writers did all the writing and engineers did all the editing, now “writer-editors”
coul d do both jobs.
CBS and the Disney Company have cut back on union staff significantly since 1980. Now they
are trying to gut the Writers Guild completely. If Writers Guild news writers, graphic artists,
producers and desk assistants go the way of all the other professionals in the newsroom, broadcast
journalism may never recover the quality it once had. The charts below show how dramatically
CBS, in particular, has slashed full-time newswriters.