Nexstar Workers Expose America’s Largest Broadcaster for Low Wages

 
NABET-CWA Local 51022 members hold a press conference in Rochester, N.Y., to demand union recognition from Nexstar’s WROC-TV 8.

Broadcasting workers at Nexstar Media Group, the largest local television station owner in the U.S., are forming unions with NABET-CWA to address low wages and unsustainable working conditions. Workers at stations in Rochester, N.Y.; Henderson, Ky.; and Denver, Colo., along with a production hub also in Denver, have recently won union elections, joining broadcast employees at thirty-five other bargaining units at Nexstar. NABET-CWA members work in all aspects of local news, including as on-air anchors, producers, directors, broadcast engineers, and technicians.

“I personally wanted to organize because of the fact that my coworkers were hurting. Hurting mentally, emotionally, physically, and financially,” said Brody Shaffer, WEHT. “Before I was fired for exercising my protected rights and freedom of speech, what I enjoyed about my job was not just the work of creating commercials—I truly enjoyed the team I worked with. I loved so many things about my job. But the thing that’s really hard to replace is the people you did the work with.”

Nexstar workers are speaking out about their working conditions in a new report, Breaking the Story: The Real Cost of Low Wages at America’s Largest Broadcaster. The wages reported by workers indicate that Nexstar pays well below its peers in the industry—22% less than the median wage, on average, for the most common occupations surveyed. Workers also report that they have to skip breaks and often work in understaffed departments.

NABET-CWA is calling on Nexstar to negotiate fair contracts that provide livable wages. Members are also urging Congress to prevent the Trump administration from eliminating the existing standards for broadcast ownership. On Monday, NABET-CWA President Charlie Braico and Newsguild-CWA President Jon Schleuss joined 14 other groups on a letter to the FCC opposing the industry’s efforts to change the current standards through rulemaking.

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This post originally appeared on cwa-union.org.