SHORT TAKES : Union at NBC Rejects Contract

A major union at NBC has rejected the company’s four-year contract offer for the second time since April, but is trying to arrange new negotiations, a union spokesman said today.

Members of the National Assn. of Broadcast Employees and Technicians voted 1,290 to 516 to reject NBC’s offer, NABET spokesman John Krieger said. “We’re trying to arrange further bargaining talks,” he said.

There was no immediate comment from NBC. The union says it has 2,373 members at NBC, and NBC-owned facilities here and in Burbank, Washington, Chicago and Cleveland, and at NBC news bureaus in the United States.

The union, which represents local and network news writers and technical employees, struck NBC in 1987 in a bitter walkout lasting 17 weeks. But no strike was imminent today, despite the contract rejection.