NABET: ‘IT LOOKS LIKE WE’RE HEADED FOR A STRIKE’

NBC set the stage for a strike Friday by formally notifying the National Assn. of Broadcast Employees and Technicians in writing that a new 282-page contract would be put into effect at 12:01 a.m. on June 29, regardless of whether the union ratified it.

“We were officially notified and it looks like we are headed for a strike,” said NABET spokesman John Krieger.

Day Krolik III, NBC vice president for labor relations, said the network decided to go ahead with implementation of its final offer because the last 12 weeks--with the 2,800 NABET members working without a contract--have been “a period of great anxiety and animosity.”

“Certain things that we proposed in our final package we proposed knowing that we might have to withstand the threat of a strike,” Krolik said.

The new contract, offered to NABET on April 2 in San Diego one day after the old contract expired, calls for wage increases that will average out to a $30 per week pay hike the first year for the camera operators, writers, videotape editors and other behind-the-camera employees that NBC employs in eight major U.S. cities. In 1988, the pay hike climbs another $40 per week.

But the major issues over which the union and network have differed have to do with job security, not money.

The network wants to begin hiring up to 4% of its technical employees on a temporary basis, without having to go through the union--a demand that NABET officials have repeatedly cited as the first step in weakening their union. NBC contends that the per-diem hires, which would climb to 6% of its technical work force in 1988 under the proposed contract, are necessary in order for the network to effectively hold its own in today’s increasingly competitive network television market.

NABET struck the network in 1976 for seven weeks, but worked for 19 months without a contract in 1984 and 1985 while network executives and union negotiators hammered out an agreement that the union membership eventually ratified.

Both sides agree that it is the general union/management atmosphere that is different this time.

“We don’t want to wait 19 months or longer or anywhere near that time to receive the benefits of these contractual changes,” Krolik said.

NABET officials, who met unsuccessfully on Tuesday in New York with NBC negotiators in a last-ditch effort to resolve their differences, said the well-publicized “cost-consciousness” of all three networks has been a major factor in the tough stance that NBC, CBS and ABC have taken toward unions this year. Sagging ad revenues and new network owners who are interested in maximizing profits have led to a less conciliatory attitude toward broadcast and entertainment industry unions.

Krieger said a nationwide noon rally of all the unions is now scheduled for Thursday to demonstrate their solidarity on the union stance against the networks’ new “cost consciousness” militancy.