Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1953)

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GOVERNMENT COURT UPHOLDS 'DISLOYALTY' FIRINGS tube with "a new electron gun, base, screen and internal and external coatings" as a new tube. Mort Farr of National Appliance & RadioTv Dealers Assn., Chicago, voiced dealers' objections to a recommended amendment (to proposed Rule 10), that tv sets placed in use by dealers as demonstrators and floor samples be designated as other than new sets. He said it would set a precedent since many other items are tried before sale, that such use is part of an established practice by dealers to test working order of sets and that such a rule would work extreme hardships on small dealers who are called upon to demonstrate their entire stock. Pearson, ABC Must Stand Libel Suit, Says Court COLUMNIST Drew Pearson and ABC will have to stand jury trial in a $450,000 libel suit involving a 1949 broadcast by Mr. Pearson over the network, according to a Supreme Court decision last week. The Supreme Court denied a hearing to Mr. Pearson and ABC, from a decision by the U. S. Court of Appeals, which reversed a District Court judge who had found for Mr. Pearson and ABC, without a jury trial. In a 1949 broadcast involving an income tax case against Dr. Bernard F. Gariepy, divorced husband of Mrs. Mary G. Gariepy, Mr. Pearson said Dr. Gariepy would claim $68,000 of his income was a "gift" from the Rev. Charles Coughlin, former radio priest, for alienation of Mrs. Gariepy's affections. Mrs. Gariepy sued, claiming the broadcast implied she was an unchaste wife. An employer has a right to discharge an employe for disloyalty, rules the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision upholding such action by WBTV (TV) Charlotte in firing union employes who disparaged its programming. RIGHT of an employer to discharge an employe for disloyalty was upheld by the U. S. Supreme Court last week in ruling the action of WBTV (TV) Charlotte, N. C, in firing nine technicians who circulated a handbill maligning the station's operations and programs was not an unlawful labor practice under the terms of the Taft-Hartley Law. Three of the nine justices dissented. In so ruling, the Supreme Court overturned a U. S. Court of Appeals decision which would have remanded the case to the NLRB [B»T, Nov. 24, 1952]. The case was based on a labor dispute between WBTV, owned by the Jefferson Standard Broadcasting Co., and the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers (AFL). WBTV's contract with 22 technicians ran out Jan. 31, 1949, and although the personnel continued on their jobs, they set up a picket line before the station following an impasse in negotiations between the station and the union. In August 1949, several of the technicians distributed 5,000 handbills disparaging the station and its operations under the heading: "Is Charlotte a Second-Class City?" This was termed "a vitriolic attack on the quality of the company's television broadcasts" by the Supreme Court majority. The handbill message made no mention of the pending labor dispute, and was signed only "WBT Technicians." Ten employes, charged with sponsoring or distributing the handbills, were discharged in September that year. IBEW filed charges with the NLRB, alleging the firing was an unlawful labor pratice. An NLRB trial examiner recommended the discharged employes be reinstated but the full board followed this recommendation only in the case of one employe. It found discharge of the other nine was not an unfair labor practice. The union appealed to the Court of Appeals, which ruled the NLRB had not determined the "unlawfulness" of the employes' conduct which led to their dismissal. NLRB took this decision to the Supreme Court. "In essence, the issue is simple," Justice Harold H. Burton wrote in the majority opinion. "It is whether these employees, whose contracts of employment had expired, were discharged 'for cause." They were discharged solely because, at a critical time in the initiation of the company's television service, they sponsored or distributed 5,000 handbills making a sharp, public, disparaging attack upon the quality of the company's product and its business policies, in a manner reasonably calculated to harm the company's reputation and reduce its income." Justice Burton continued: "There is no more elemental cause for discharge of an employee than disloyalty to his employer. It is equally elemental that the Taft-Hartley Act seeks to strengthen, rather than to weaken, that cooperation, continuity of service and cordial contractual relation between employer and employee that is born of loyalty to their common enterprise." Labor Practice Not Attacked The attack on the company related to no labor practice, and it made no reference to wages, hours or working conditions, Justice Burton pointed out. "It was a continuing attack, initiated while off duty, upon the very interests which the attackers were being paid to conserve and develop. Nothing could be further from the purpose of the Act than to require an employer to finance such activities. . . . "The fortuity of the coexistence of a labor dispute affords these technicians no substantial defense. . . . The handbill diverted attention from the labor controversy. It attacked public policies of the company which had no discernible relation to that controversy. The only connection between the handbill and the labor controversy was an ultimate . and undisclosed purpose or motive on the part of some of the sponsors that, by the hoped-for financial pressure, the attack might extract from the company some future concession. . . . "In any event, the findings of the Board [NLRB] effectively separate the attack from the labor controversy and treat it solely as one made, by the company's technical experts upon the quality of the company's product. As such, it was as adequate a cause for the discharge of its sponsors as if the labor controversy had not been pending. . . ." The dissent, written by Justice Felix Frankfurter, for himself and Justices Hugh L. Black and William O. Douglas, took issue with the majority on the ground that the NLRB used the criterion "indefensible" for the technicians' con Do You Know This Man? He is Randall Kalcr, program manager and assistant manager of WFAS, White Plains, N. Y., for over 20 years. He says— "I like the SESAC Transcribed Library. Here at WFAS we stress music and news and we constantly use such outstanding SESAC recording artists for our sponsored Ruppert Beer Show as — 'The New World Symphony Orchestra', The Radio Symphony Orchestra', 'The Aeolian String Orchestra' and 'The Symphonic "Pops" Orchestra'." "We feel that our Conlan rating increase for our 6:15 to 7:30 time segment this year is largely due to the addition of the SESAC Transcribed Library — and the tone quality of SESAC discs is always excellent." AT YOUR STATION -See and hear the SESAC Program Service by dropping a card to — SESAC Transcribed Library 475 Fifth Avenue New York 17, NT. Y. Page 58 • December 14, 1953 Broadcasting • Telecasting