TV UNION PICKETS NEWS EVENTS, DENIES PRESSURE

KTLA-TV technicians, who went on strike Monday, have begun picketing various news events covered by non-union camera crews from the station. But they aren’t authorized to ask newsmakers to shun KTLA reporters, their union says.

“I’m not aware of anything like that happening,” says James Osburn, executive director of Local 695 of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employes (IATSE), whose members struck KTLA after rejecting a proposed contract. “We wouldn’t authorize that.”

The question arose Thursday after several men, one wearing a T-shirt that said “KTLA on strike,” showed up at a news conference in downtown Los Angeles. One of them asked Ted Hayes, who was holding the news conference, not to talk to the KTLA news crew there.

Hayes, who held the press session to discuss the plight of homeless men in Los Angeles, refused the request, saying, “This is an open news conference.”

The men didn’t give their names or say they were members of IATSE, but distributed cards to other TV news crews--whose members belong to other unions--covering the conference. The cards said that KTLA was struck and added: “Help stamp out scabs. The job you save may be your own.”

The appearance of IATSE pickets at another Thursday news conference held by U.S. Attorney Robert Bonner and Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates apparently prompted Bonner to ask the KTLA crew there to leave, on the understanding that Bonner would meet with them later.

Lt. Dan Cooke, a police spokesman, said Gates didn’t ask the KTLA crew to leave. Cooke said he understood that Bonner made the request to avoid the possibility that other TV crews might refuse to cross the IATSE picket line and thus not cover the news conference.

Bonner wasn’t available by press time for comment. Queries about both incidents were referred by KTLA News Director Jeff Wald to Cliff Dektar, a spokesman for the station. Dektar said the station considers such incidents only “a nuisance,” and that Channel 5’s reporters “will get the stories anyway.”

“We haven’t had any complaints” about the union’s strike activities, said Osburn. He said union members are “authorized to follow their struck work” and picket KTLA’s coverage of news events, but are told “to stay within the parameters of the National Labor Relations Act” in their picketing.

About 140 IATSE members--including camera and sound technicians, engineers and tape editors--began their first-ever strike against KTLA after rejecting a proposed three-year contract by a vote of 127 to 2 Sunday, Osburn said.

Dektar said no new negotiations are scheduled. Osburn said a major issue in the contract dispute is job security for the union’s members at KTLA, because there have been reports the station might be sold.

“We have asked to go back to the bargaining table at any time, any day, any hour,” he added. “We have not received any response from the company.”