NBC WILL FIRE 200 NABET STRIKERS

NBC, which last year axed 400 jobs, said Thursday it will cut another 200 held by members of the National Assn. of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, which is now in the 16th week of a strike against the network and the five TV stations it owns.

The decision is “not punitive,” emphasized NBC spokesman Bud Rukeyser, who denied a union official’s claim that NBC plans to eliminate a total of 500 NABET jobs and to trim its management ranks by 30% in two cuts of 15% each.

That assertion was made by Chuck Klein, a spokesman for the union’s Burbank Local 53. He said his information came Wednesday night from a former member of the union who now is in NBC management but himself is facing a layoff.

Rukeyser acknowledged that there will be additional job reductions later but insisted that it isn’t known yet how many, and said that “anybody who gives you any other number” than the 200 he cited “is making it up.”

The current round of reductions, which will occur in all areas of the company, including network and local news operations, will trim NBC’s total payroll to 7,300 persons.

Half of the 200 cuts stem from the recent $50-million sale of the NBC Radio network. The others are jobs considered by NBC to be “superfluous.” The layoffs would start when NABET’s strike ends.

NBC’s disclosure came as the union’s 2,800 striking members prepared to vote on a contract offer by NBC that, if accepted, would end the union’s walkout, which began June 29. Results of the voting is to be announced on Monday. If approved, the pact would go into effect immediately and would expire March 31, 1990. But rejection of even one of its 15 separate contracts means the strike would continue.

None of the NBC employees dismissed last year were NABET members, said Rukeyser, executive vice president of corporate communications. Those job cuts were the result of a “functional analysis” by heads of NBC departments on ways to streamline operations, he said.

However, that analysis didn’t extend to NABET-held jobs because contract talks were about to start, he said. Another internal study began shortly after union members struck, he said, and was supplemented by the practical experience of getting by without the strikers.

About 700 management employees and what NBC calls “non-represented” (non-union) personnel have been filling in on various NABET jobs such as camera operators, news writers, news producers and videotape editors.

“We’ve had 15, 16 weeks to look at a company being run now without a third of its work force, which, if anything, is a laboratory experiment which shows quite clearly how you can run the place with fewer people,” Rukeyser said.

The 200 job cuts decided on were the result of that study, he said, adding that NBC division managers were asked to scrutinize their operations where NABET jobs were involved “and try and figure how to run it more efficiently, which means with fewer people.”

He said he didn’t know how many more job losses would result.

Recommendations of additional job cuts will come from the NBC department heads, but not from top management, he added: “We will eventually come out with a total. But it’s not a total that’s being laid on from the top down. It’ll be a total that develops out of this process.”

He said NBC wasn’t disclosing the first round of NABET job cuts to intimidate the union’s members as they prepare to vote on the new contract offer, but rather to respond to various rumors and published speculation about coming layoffs at the company.

“There have been leaks that are completely off the wall,” he said. The company felt that if job cuts have been made, “it’s better to be up front about this than not,” he said.

Meanwhile, there was a significant split Thursday in the union leadership as Art Kent, president of the union’s largest branch, Local 11 here, broke with his colleagues on the six-member negotiating committee by urging members of his local to accept NBC’s proposed contract.

Later in the day, Local 53 spokesman Klein said that Kent had been “censured” for his action by a majority of the negotiating committee.

In a statement to the local’s 1,350 members, Kent and the local’s executive board said that while they don’t consider NBC’s offer “fair and equitable,” members should still vote to accept it.

“It is our belief that a prolongation of this strike would not result in any significant change in the company’s position,” the statement said.

Last Sunday, five members on the union’s negotiating committee agreed to put NBC’s offer to a membership vote but urged its rejection by the rank-and-file. Kent, the sixth member, abstained from the recommendation vote.