CNN to pay $76M to settle allegations it violated labor law

Agreement will benefit about 300 unionized broadcast technicians.

CNN has agreed to pay $76 million in back pay to settle allegations that it violated federal labor law when it replaced hundreds of unionized broadcast technicians more than 15 years ago, the National Labor Relations Board said Friday.

The board said the settlement was the largest monetary remedy in its 84-year history and more than the amount the agency collects in a typical year.

The agreement ends a long-running dispute that erupted in 2003, when CNN terminated a contract with Team Video Services, which had provided audio and video services to the cable company’s New York and Washington bureaus.

CNN then hired new employees to perform the same work without recognizing or bargaining with the two unions that had represented the Team Video Services employees, the board said Friday.

“CNN sought to operate as a nonunion workplace,” the board said, and made clear to the workers that their prior employment with Team Video Services and union affiliation “disqualified them from employment.”

The agreement will benefit about 300 camera operators, sound technicians, studio technicians and broadcast engineers.

“After more than 15 years, this settlement agreement finally delivers justice for workers who experienced serious hardship in their lives due to CNN’s union-busting practices,” Charlie Braico, the president of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, said in a statement. “This incredible settlement in workers’ favor should send a very clear message to CNN and to other employers that union-busting is illegal and has consequences.”

CNN released a brief statement acknowledging the settlement.

“After more than a decade of litigation, negotiation and appeals we are pleased to have resolved a longstanding legal matter,” the statement said.

The agreement came just days before the broadcast employees’ union, which is part of the Communications Workers of America, had planned to picket outside the next Democratic presidential debate, which CNN is hosting Tuesday at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. The union said it had told CNN, the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic candidates who had qualified for the debate of its plan to picket the event.