NABET-CWA Members Celebrate V-Day With a New Contract

NABET-CWA Local 59051 members at KOIN-TV Nexstar in Portland, Ore., have brought a nearly eight-year fight for justice to a close with overwhelming ratification of a new contract.

After years of fruitless negotiation, members determined that the employer was not bargaining in good faith and filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board. After the NLRB supported the workers’ complaint, Nexstar appealed the decision, leading to a years-long battle in federal court. The NLRB prevailed, forcing Nexstar to return to the bargaining table and engage in genuine negotiations. Members also won backpay for those who had taken time off to be at the bargaining table and reimbursements for location rentals needed for the bargaining process.

Although bargaining resumed, progress was slow. Members rejected a tentative agreement in 2022 and have been working without a contract since September 2018. The current contract, which was ratified on Valentine’s Day, retains 45 key contract points Nexstar sought to eliminate and contains significant gains for members over its two-year lifespan. Healthcare premiums will remain locked for the duration of the contract, workers will see increased wage minimums as much as twenty percent, and workers will continue to be able to bank five additional vacation days for holidays worked.

“Make no mistake, this was an attack on our unit, designed to break us,” said NABET-CWA Local 59051 President Carrie Biggs-Adams. “Nexstar tried to take away our dues checkoff, but we defended that. Our members voted 40-5 in favor. Now my hope is that we can go back to being a typical unit with a typical grievance process and that the war is truly over.”

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This post originally appeared on cwa-union.org.