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History
On the twelfth of June, 1939, the Chicago chapter of the Associated
Broadcast Technicians Units [ABTU] of the IBEW held its first
regular meeting. In Studio 10 of WBBM, the members-to-be were read a
telegram from David Tracy, President of the International
Organization [I.O.] of the IBEW (and soon to be Assistant Secretary
of Labor), approving the “participation of the IBEW radio men in the
ABTU.” Before this, broadcast engineers and operators organized by
the IBEW had been in an “IT&R” group within the larger IBEW local,
in this case local 134, but the International Organization had found
that ‘it took a radio man to organize a radio man,’ so the ABTU was
established as a semi-autonomous organization to facilitate the
unionization of broadcast engineers.
The ABTU grew rapidly. First, of course, once the ABTU had the
blessings of the I.O., broadcast engineers currently in Local 134
were encouraged to formally affiliate themselves with the new ABTU.
More importantly, though, men flocked to the union in 1939, 1940,
and 1941. There was a certain prestige to being a union man, since
the ABTU set standards for its members, especially the “First
‘Phone”, a first-class radio and telephone engineers license. Local
1220 was systematic enough that in 1941 a “points” system was
adopted to fairly evaluate candidates for membership, with a
“passing” score. Those who hadn’t yet met the criteria for
membership could, in the meantime, receive temporary “work permits”
so that the lack of a first class license would not unfairly bar
them from employment. (The entire system for judging applicants and
granting work permits was dismantled after the Taft-Hartley laws
went into effect.)
In the interests of good relations with employers the local never
insisted on controlling the assignment of technicians to shops, and
the local accepted as members applicants who had been recruited by
the companies. At the same time, though, Local 1220 watched for
openings in shops it represented. Whenever possible the local
directed engineers and operators to jobs as they came available.
Since many broadcast technicians in smaller shops expressed an
interest in moving up to the larger stations, and the local knew
what was available, the local directly helped its members with
career advancement.
Unionization also brought better pay, more decent working
conditions, and some protection from unfair treatment by employers.
Basic benefits that are now taken for granted, such as overtime for
work over 40 hours, overtime pay for work over 5 consecutive days, a
lunch hour in the middle of the work period, recognition of a
necessary travel time for travel to transmitters when the employees
are assigned to more than one site, regular vacation, and so forth,
each had to be fought for. For instance, some men were expected to
travel long distances to work at two different transmitters with no
allowance for the additional travel time required. Issues for
negotiation also included vacation, sick leave, pensions, and
overtime pay for work on holidays such as Christmas and New Year’s
Day. Into the 1950s one broadcaster was still trying to argue that
if Christmas fell on a Sunday the employer could just pay straight
time if the Sunday was part of the engineer’s regular work week. The
union had to file a grievance to stop the broadcaster. It is no
wonder, then, that the ABTU attracted so many broadcast technicians.
The early days of the ABTU were also full of the excitement and heat
of a rapidly organizing industry: no sooner was the ABTU organized
than it had to deal with a lockout at WHIP in Hammond, Indiana. The
management was dead set against an organized shop and continued to
operate with two non-union operators in defiance of pickets; their
names and home addresses were noted so everyone could know who they
were. The lockout dragged on, however, and eventually the head of
the Lake County [Ind.] Central Labor Union, together with a
representative of President Tracy, met with the management of the
Hammond-Calumet B.C. Co.; opposition vanished overnight. By the
spring of 1940 there were 428 men in the midwest local of the ABTU,
and it was expected that membership could swell to as many as 900
after all the IBEW members in Chicago had transferred to the ABTU.
There was, though, one moment of confusion in the very early days of
the ABTU. Apparently the existence of the ABTU predated its formal
affiliation with the IBEW; even afterwards for several years there
was a separate ABTU Council and a separate International
Representative. At the time of the early meetings there was some
confusion as to just who was eligible to vote on offices, and for a
little while there was some confusion on just who was Business
Manager. The old Business Manager of the ABTU was not sure the
elections were valid. Eventually the confusion was straightened out,
the local continued to organize under a provisional set of by-laws
and in May, 1940 requested a charter from the IBEW. In 1941 the
Chicago organization received its formal charter as “Local 1220 of
the A.B.T.U. of the I.B.E.W.”
The years of the Second World War are rather interesting in that war
came less than a year after Local 1220 received its charter. On one
hand, the intervention of the War Labor Board, wage stabilization
and no-strike rules limited the activities of Local 1220 with
respect to typical union activities. On the other hand, though, the
same rules provided employers with a loose framework of expected
wages and working conditions. In the meantime, radio technicians
continued to come to the union asking to be represented by the ABTU
of the IBEW.
Given the restrictions of the war, it is not surprising that a brief
period of intense labor activity struck the broadcasters of the
Midwest along with the rest of the nation once that war was over.
The interesting thing about Local 1220 though is just how brief the
quarrel was. In July 1945 there was discussion of strikes at eight
stations, with only the provision that “WCFL be permitted to operate
for three days . . . if the union is permitted adequate time on the
air to present its side of the controversy. Motion defeated 34 to
13.” Instead the local decided to give all eight stations three days
warning. By the next monthly meeting, however, everything seems to
have been resolved to the satisfaction of the union.
By late 1947, though, the relative power of Local 1220 had begun to
change. Suddenly the contract negotiations became difficult, and
attorneys for the stations began to ask for extensions in order to
examine the provisions of the Taft-Hartley laws. In the early 1950s
one finds that suddenly some companies begin to refuse to negotiate
and try to find ways to forestall the recognition of the union even
after employees have asked to be represented. Organizing became more
difficult.
As Local 1220 began to adjust to its new position under the
Taft-Hartley laws, though, an unprecedented hiring boom was
underway: television had come to town as a going commercial
enterprise. First there was WBKB [later bought by CBS to become WBBM-TV]
and soon thereafter WGN-TV went on the air. Dozens of engineers
could be hired by a broadcaster in a single year. Most of the new
employees up to 1950-51 were men who had gained their training
during the war.
The period from 1950 to roughly 1967 was a fairly quiet one, in that
Local 1220 had settled into a routine for handling negotiations and
grievances. There was a year-long strike at WXFM near Harlem Avenue,
one which broke out only shortly after Norm Rugen had been
complemented for his work on the transmitter, but this was unusual.
Behind the smooth surface, though, there was activity that let the
radio and television broadcast engineers keep the union together in
the long run. From the beginning, the local has shown a keen
foresight into the technical developments in broadcasting, and
acting on this foresight has permitted the broadcast engineers and
operators to remain united.
Everyone who works with television, for instance, owes their IBEW
affiliation to the vision of the early members of the IBEW. As early
as the spring of 1940 the minutes of the monthly meeting note that
there was considerable discussion of the importance of jurisdiction
over commercial television. Zenith, of course, already had an
experimental station in Chicago, so it may be that this is what the
members of the ABTU were watching, since the minutes note in
particular that the ABTU members at CBS-New York were the principal
obstacles to gaining jurisdiction to commercial television. The
question was whether IBEW or IATSE, the stage hands’ union, would
obtain jurisdiction. Ultimately the matter was resolved in 1944,
after the reports of several committees on television education and
FM education, when Petrillo of the Musician’s union agreed to back
IBEW in jurisdiction over television in exchange for IBEW giving the
musicians jurisdiction over the playing of records at radio
stations. (The use of live musicians was decreasing as stations
switched to canned music, and this seemed to be a logical extension
of the function of musicians.) Although the leadership of the IBEW
radio broadcast engineers thought this to be a good deal, the
regular memberships of Local 1220 heartily disapproved of the
proposed agreement until the very month that IATSE formally claimed
jurisdiction over television. Opposition to the deal immediately
evaporated.
Similarly, everyone who works with videotape owes their place to a
twelve-day strike against CBS in 1958, a strike that also seems to
be the product of foresight on the part of the Radio and Television
Broadcast Engineers. In 1953 H. Walter Thompson, the president of
Local 1220, toured the Ampex plant to see what progress they were
making in their experiments with videotape. By 1958 videotape was no
longer over the horizon but at the doorstep, and IBEW requested that
CBS grant jurisdiction over videotape to the union. CBS refused, and
the union walked. Most newspapers reported the strike from the
perspective of the company, which cried that the union simply was
gouging the company for more money, but one woman working for the
Chicago American went down to talk to the picketers and came back
with the report that the pickets said they didn’t care if they
didn’t make a dime on the deal: they wanted jurisdiction over
videotape. Many of the technicians working with live television were
afraid they would be forced out once videotape was in extensive use,
and they wanted to be able to expand into a new area for employment.
It is, of course, difficult to say for sure what the basis of the
strike was, since the Chicago Tribune, Sun- Times, and Wall Street
Journal mainly covered the story as a matter of how well the
stations were getting along without their engineers, but it should
be noted that the strike began on April 7 and continued without
progress until, on April 17th [as reported in one sentence in the
New York Times], CBS announced that there was no jurisdictional
issue since as far as CBS was concerned the IBEW had jurisdiction
over all videotape. On April 18th new contracts were in the hands of
all the locals affected, a vote was arranged, and on the 19th of
April the strike was over.
The period from 1968 to 1970 was an odd one, in that there was a
sudden surge of new hires and therefore new members of Local 1220,
but at the same time the companies began a new period of squabbling
with the local. There were suddenly innumerable petty disputes
arising from the companies trying to unilaterally change
jurisdiction without changing the contract first. Then, in 1971, the
engineers at KWGN in Denver were hit by an ultimatum from the
management, demanding an open shop. The result was a lockout in
Denver, pickets in Chicago, and a deeply divided shop. Contract
negotiations with WGN were unusually difficult. Then, in 1972, CBS
requested a nearly complete surrender of jurisdiction. Again Local
1220 was forced to go out on strike, this time for an extended
period.
The mid-1970s saw another difficult change for Local 1220 as more
and more radio stations decided they no longer needed engineers.
Instead of having formats that required engineers, a large number of
stations decided to go “combo”, meaning that the disc jockeys would
take over almost all the responsibilities of the engineers; as a
classical station went to “Soft Rock”, for example, the simultaneous
switch to a combo operation could cut a ten-person staff down to
three.
Not only did more broadcasters go combo, television stations cut
back on the amount of local production, making for more cutbacks in
the staff. Finally, the broadcasters began to hire fewer and fewer
full-time employees, relying more heavily on temporary personnel and
“per diems” who do not accrue seniority and have no benefits.
In all, then, the last fifteen to twenty years have been a challenge
to Local 1220. At this time, though, the members of the local can
look back with pride on the record of successes that the union has
compiled. The union has a record of vision in acting so as to secure
for its members the best possible working conditions for its
members, and the best possible wages, while never risking the
security and well-being of its members unnecessarily. The union only
goes to war when it is pushed and its members would be hurt, but
when it has to look out for its members, it is effective
Compiled by Will Kelley, on the 50th Anniversary of Local 1220
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