Union to investigate KOMO-TV firings

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Union to investigate KOMO firings

By Florangela Davila

Seattle Times TV writer

In the wake of Monday's firing of April Zepeda, Joe Furia and Kevin Reece from KOMO-TV, the union representing the three veteran reporters will investigate whether the dismissals are connected to the fact that, within the past week, Furia and Zepeda had agreed to serve as local union representatives.

"I can't be sure if there is any connection, but the appearance is certainly there," Zepeda said Wednesday. "I don't know if it's retaliation or a case of monumentally bad timing."

Vice president and general manager Jim Clayton said the station doesn't discuss personnel issues. And the firings, coming in the middle of the competitive May ratings-sweeps period, "were done for specific reasons that I can't really talk about," he said.

He added that any assertion that the firings were related to Zepeda's and Furia's union activities is "ludicrous."

KOMO and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), which represents the on-air talent, are operating without a contract.

They had negotiated a three-year contract that was to have begun Jan. 1, but according to AFTRA's Seattle Executive Director John Sandifer, the station then deleted language about wages for reporters contributing work to the Web, and the contract wasn't signed.

FULL story at link.

but that doesn't necessarily mean that the it isn't true ... in the world of union-busting legal semantics