Local elected officials back union effort at WROC

Joined by a number of state legislators outside his office, Assemblyman Harry Bronson on Monday announced an interview boycott of WROC-TV 8 news by local politicians.

“Over two years ago, these workers voted to unionize and have been waiting to secure a contract since then. These workers have made every attempt to negotiate, but management has ignored this vote,” says Bronson, who chairs the Assembly Labor Committee. “So, we say to them, no more Channel 8, no more. Recognize your workers, and when you do, we will recognize you as a news outlet.”

With the interview boycott, Bronson is honoring the request made in a letter from the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians Local 22, which asked that leaders decline any Zoom or one-on-one interviews with WROC. Coverage of events or press conferences by WROC is still allowable under their request.

NABET-CWA Local 22 currently represents employees at WHEC-TV 10 and WUHF-TV 31. It would represent WROC-TV 8 employees in negotiations with Nexstar.

This action represents a heightening of efforts, which included a picket line last month.

In February 2023, a vote to unionize was successful at WROC. Nexstar Media, which owns or operates over 200 stations in the country, including WROC, contested the results, claiming news producers who voted were considered “management” and therefore ineligible.

“That was the first producers at Channel 8 had ever heard of them being managers in their entire careers,” says Johnny Nixon, the vice president of NABET-CWA Local 22.

A refusal-to-bargain case was brought by the National Labor Relations Board in August 2024, which ultimately ordered Nexstar to bargain with the unit. However, those efforts stalled until now because the company sought to have the case heard in the Fifth District of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Louisiana, rather than New York, where the NLRB suit was originally filed.

That attempt was unsuccessful, and the case will be heard in New York instead.

While Nexstar’s headquarters is located in Louisiana, Bronson believes there was a different reason the company wanted the appeal to be heard in that court.

“The decisions on behalf of unions in the Fifth Circuit (are) a lot less favorable than in the Second, so (Nexstar was) shopping for a more favorable decision,” he says.

At the announcement, Nixon also shared the results from a survey of Nexstar employees across the country.

“A majority of survey respondents feel financially insecure; 87 percent are worried about meeting financial obligations, 55 percent report delaying necessary medical care, and 53 percent report delaying groceries among their struggles to get by on Nexstar’s wages,” Nixon says.

In addition, the survey found that 62 percent of Nexstar workers earn less than a living wage for their metro area for a single person without children, and 89 percent for a single person with a single child. Sixty-three percent rely on family, friends, or public assistance to get by.

Fifty-four percent said they rely on overtime to make ends meet, 38 percent rely on a second job, and 22 percent said they rely on both.

“When I started at my TV station over 30 years ago, I was under the belief that loyalty would be rewarded,” Bob Pastecki, president of NABET-CWA Local 22, said in a release of the survey results. “I have found out that people that start out doing the same job I do at another union station in town have an hourly rate that starts $3.56 more per hour than I make after 30 years at my workplace. That’s more than $7,400 per year that would help me take care of my family.”

“Nexstar has also fired workers who are exercising their union rights,” Nixon adds, pointing to a recent example at stations located in Evansville, Ind. “This is shameful and wrong.”

Bronson was joined in his public announcement by fellow Assembly members Jen Lunsford and Demond Meeks, and Monroe County Clerk Jamie Romeo. All are Democrats. Christina Christman, vice president of the Rochester-Genesee Valley Area Labor Federation, was also in attendance.

“I will not stand by and be complicit in filling the coffers of a company that will not even have a conversation with their workers,” says Lunsford. “Workers who ensure that the people of this community stay informed, who are out here every day helping to make our community a better place. I stand with workers, I stand with New Yorkers.”

Other Democratic politicians who have signed on to support the boycott include Assembly member Sarah Clark; state Sens. Jeremy Cooney and Samra Brouk; Rochester City Council members Miguel Melendez, Mary Lupien, Michael Patterson, Stanley Martin and Bridget Monroe; and Brighton Town Supervisor Bill Moehle. 

Legal briefs are due in the Second District appellate court in September. A timeline for the next step in that process is unclear at this point, but Bronson says, based on his experience as a labor lawyer and the actions thus far in the unionization effort, Nexstar’s strategy is very clear to him.

“These are just steps taken to delay, delay, delay,” says Bronson. “They know damn well their arguments don’t have merit.”

Beyond supporting this boycott, NABET-CWA Local 22 also urges the community to sign its online petition demanding action from Nexstar.

Nextstar officials declined to comment.

Jacob Schermerhorn is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and data journalist.

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