I'm surprised Cenk didn't hire the Pinkertons to come in and start cracking skulls.
Regardless, his union busting skills are obviously top notch.
Union Fight Gets Nastier With Charges of Retaliatory Firing, Withholding Raises
The union has charged Young Turks boss Cenk Uygur with firing an employee and withholding raises in retaliation for the union drive. (Photo by Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for The Young Turks)
A contentious union campaign by the staff of the progressive news network The Young Turks (TYT) is growing even more combative. Today, the union filed two separate unfair labor practice charges alleging that the company and its CEO, the popular liberal media figure Cenk Uygur, withheld wage increases and bonuses from employees as a result of the union drive, and that they fired an employee as retaliation for union activity—charges that Uygur denies.
On February 12, about 15 TYT employees announced their intention to unionize with IATSE. They expected to gain voluntary recognition from their famously liberal employer through a simple check of union cards, but were spurned. The company insisted on holding a secret ballot election at work in order to recognize the union, a tactic typically considered to be anti-union. (Uygur disputed this, telling In These Times that “Voluntary recognition means any recognition process outside of an NLRB election.” But card check is generally understood to be what unions mean by “voluntary recognition.”)
In a tense staff meeting held the same day, Uygur urged staffers not to unionize, saying a union would be unsustainable given TYT’s perilous financial position. Uygur’s position on the union has been widely criticized as hypocritical, coming from a man who made his name as a champion of progressive causes. TYT bills itself as the largest online news show in the world, with more than 200 million views per month.
Uygur, who at the time was running for Congress in California’s 25th district, also suggested that the union fight was politically motivated, since IATSE was endorsing one of his opponents in the race. On Tuesday, Uygur lost the race, coming in fourth with about 5% of the vote.
https://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/22350/the-young-turks-union-cenk-uygur-labor-organizing
