Date Set for CBS Newswriters Strike Authorization Vote

NEW
YORK/LOS ANGELES, October 23: CBS News employees who are members of the Writers
Guild of America are set to hold a strike authorization vote on November 15,
after working under an expired contract since April 2005.

According
to a statement from the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) and Writers Guild
of America, West (WGAW), the WGA-CBS Negotiating Committee has unanimously
recommended the call for a strike. WGA-CBS members have been working under an
expired contract since April 2, 2005 and without pay raises since April 2004.

A
CBS contract offer was rejected by 99 percent of WGA-CBS members in a November
2006 vote, and a subsequent meeting in January 2007 did not yield any results.

"For
too long, CBS has taken the crowning legacy of Edward R. Murrow and his colleagues
and cheapened it, increasingly turning the broadcast news medium into the mere
‘lights and wires in a box' Murrow feared,” said Michael Winship, the president
of WGAE. “Part of that diminution of news quality is reflected in the network's
refusal to offer our dedicated, knowledgeable, hard-working members a fair and
respectful contract. We expect those members to use their strike authorization
to tell management that the nearly three years they have gone without a
contract is unconscionable, short-sighted and destructive."

Among
the contract terms rejected by the WGA-CBS members are a two-tier wage
package—television and network radio members in one tier and local radio
members in another—with no retroactive pay; the right to assign current
WGA responsibilities to non-WGA employees; and the ability to merge or combine
Guild shops with non-Guild units.

The
WGA-CBS national agreement covers newswriters, editors, desk assistants,
production assistants, graphic artists, promotion writers and researchers in
New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago and Los Angeles working in television and
radio on the national and local levels. More than 500 WGA-CBS employees are
covered under this contract, which expired on April 1, 2005.

—By
Mansha Daswani