One “Result” Of The 1987 NABET Strike At NBC…The Robots

NBC Burbank was teeming with game-show production in the ’70s and ’80s. All that came to a halt in the ’90s, requiring less engineering and staging labor. Unit managers and the Compliance and Practices department were done away with.

My Dad, George Smith was president of Nabet from the early 50’s to his death in July, 1964.

BEFORE calling a strike, the Union could have accepted the Daily Hire provisions of the Contract AND actually ran it, supplying the workers. Instead, a strike was called, ending with Management’s total control hiring friends, family and whoever they wanted. If a daily hire “greased” someone’s hand, you got a better assignment.

As for the robots in Studio 6B, I saw them coming. For years, while we were “On The Air” many camera people read newspapers, magazines, etc. We were paid for so many hours of work, but many had to show they weren’t interested in doing that work. They were shocked when the robotics arrived. I was one of the first group to operate those robotics. Each pedestal’s computer kept track of all movement from the home base black & white squares. As you moved each camera into position, you had to save the movement into a file. Then it would always be able to recall that movement. Since the Local News was basically “talking heads” without much movement, it was not difficult. There were times when the cameras and/or pedestals would go off program, banging into each other or a camera did an instant 180 degree pan off the set. I would NOT go near them to turn them off since I was concerned about my safety. My thought was, GE purchased these, let’s see how they’ll hold up after they stop fighting!

The TV Industry changed while the Union failed to look into the future. Many members were also to blame with their “deals” undermining their own Union contract. I really enjoyed doing the work but I had my own personal war with management which began the day I was discharged from the US Army in 1969. That’s a whole another story that ended with early retirement.

GE had a couple of CEO holders from the “chainsaw Al” school of management. The firm is only just getting over the value destruction.

GE totally destroyed the soul of NBC. the whole NBC family atmosphere was gone forever. NBC middle & lower management was working very well with the Nabet engineers. I was there, I lived it. I and my fellow Nabet members lost a lot of money as the article points out, We Maintenance Engineers worked a bunch of overtime repairing the broken equipment after we returned. In the aftermath we watched as many of the managers who “attempted” to do our jobs unsuccessfully were eventually laid off, that’s the “thanks” they got from GE for working around the clock to stay on the air.. NOBODY WINS! Sad……very sad indeed.

After we were back, I remember being called into the GM’s office (in Washington) in small groups and being told that we were no longer to take the time to produce a quality product and that what we did didn’t really matter as long as “they” had something to run between the commercials. It wasn’t long after that the staged “exploding gas tank” scandal hit the network news department.

It’s taken years of therapy to get over that one.