With New York City area Communications Workers of America (CWA) members under attack by Cablevision — the company controlled by owner James Dolan (also owner of Madison Square Garden, and the Knicks and the Rangers teams) — CWA developed a campaign with NY ad agency BerlinRosen, who in turn commissioned EpandMedia and director Len Epand to create the :30 second TV ad, “Worker.”
“Worker” helps the union fight back by pointing out the unfair practices of this important employer. Berlin Rosen’s Alex Navarro-McKay and Bridget Cusick oversaw the production.
The campaign was described in the Wall Street Journal June 19, 2013:
Labor’s Spat With Cablevision Intensifies; Union to Launch TV Ad Campaign in Fight Over Contract
By LAURA KUSISTO
It is one of the longest festering labor disputes in the city: Cablevision Systems Corp. and a group of hundreds of newly unionized workers can’t agree on a new contract, a fight that has drawn attention from mayoral candidates and a sharply worded complaint from the National Labor Relations Board.
Now, the dispute will be aired widely on television.
Starting Wednesday, the Communications Workers of America is planning to run advertisements on television stations including NY1 and CNN and in print in the New York Daily News, presenting its side of the long-running dispute.
The ad’s narrator, a worker clad in khakis and a navy shirt, points to a pictures of a smiling James Dolan, Cablevision’s president and CEO, leaning back in an office chair.
“When Cablevision workers assert their rights, this company fires them. When the federal labor board says that’s illegal, he sues to destroy their power, threatening workers everywhere,” the ad says in part.
Cablevision spokesman Charles Schueler said 22 Brooklyn workers who lost their jobs when they went on strike in February had been hired back. The company has vigorously disputed the NLRB’s ruling, and contends the CWA is preventing workers from disbanding the union.
The campaign against Cablevision has become a cause among mayoral candidates, with all but one of the major Democratic hopefuls rallying to support the workers in recent weeks.
The ad campaign, which will cost several hundred thousand dollars, is the latest expenditure for the union as it has worked for more than a year to retain 273 new members at one of the region’s major employers.
“It’s an escalation. It signals our willingness to do whatever it takes for us and as long as it takes for us to win this fight,” said Bob Master, political director for the CWA’s District 1 office for the northeast.