On-air employees at Erie's WJET-TV/WFXP-TV vote overwhelmingly to join a union
News anchors, reporters, meteorologists and other on-air employees at WJET-TV/WFXP-TV voted overwhelmingly Thursday to unionize with the Screen Actors Guild — American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, AFL-CIO.
The vote was 11 to 4, according to a news release the employees and SAG-AFTRA released.
"We believe our union will strengthen WJET-TV as a station and make it a better source of news and information for viewers in the Erie community. Some of the most pressing issues we wanted to address by forming this union were staffing, wages, and the fair and uniform enforcement of company policies," the unit said in the release.
Employees declined a request for interviews. A message seeking comment from Nexstar Media Group, which owns and operates the Erie television stations, was not immediately returned.
On-air employees at WJET/WFXP began working with SAG-AFTRA in October and asked Nexstar management to recognize the union voluntarily in January. When that didn't happen, the employees worked with the union to schedule Thursday's vote.
With Thursday's vote, Erie's three largest newsrooms are all unionized. WICU-TV/WSEE-TV on-air employees have belonged to SAG-AFTRA for decades, while reporters, assignment editors and photographers at the Erie Times-News formed the Erie Newspaper Guild (now Erie News Guild) in 1969.
Other non-management employees at WJET/WFXP and WICU/WSEE — including news photographers, engineers, news producers and editors — are already members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians — Communications Workers of America.
The next step for the newly organized WJET/WFXP employees is to form a representative bargaining committee and negotiate their first contract with Nexstar.
"WJET employees who provide news and information to the community should be partners in the decision-making process that goes into carrying out that mission," SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said in a statement. "Unionizing gives them the tools they need to make that happen, and we are delighted to welcome them into the ever-growing family of media station employees who have chosen to join SAG-AFTRA."
Contact David Bruce at dbruce@timesnews.com. Follow him on X @ETNBruce.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Erie's WJET-TV/WFXP-TV on-air workers vote to join SAG-AFTRA union
