Use of Foreign NBC Staff in Strike Causes Stir

NEW YORK — In a move that a striking union called illegal, NBC acknowledged Thursday it has brought in foreign nationals from overseas NBC News bureaus to temporarily help out the news division during the current walkout.

Even though NBC said the number of overseas staffers brought in was small and its action legal, the move seemed certain to heighten tensions in the strike that began June 29 against NBC by 2,800 members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians.

Carrie Biggs-Adams, head of NABET Local 53 in Burbank, said that the union considered the company’s move unlawful. She said that the union would file a complaint today with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and seek federal court action next week.

The move affects only NBC News, which had approximately 350 writers, producers and others, both local and national staffers, walk off the job as part of the NABET strike.

Rumors of NBC’s action circulated late Wednesday. On Thursday, a company spokeswoman here, in response to queries, said “less than 20 people” had been brought in, the majority of them foreign nationals. She had no exact number.

The new arrivals came from NBC News bureaus in Johannesburg, London, Paris, Rome, Tokyo and Tel Aviv, according to the spokeswoman, McClain Ramsey, who said the foreigners included producers and camera crews.

She said she didn’t know to which NBC News bureaus in the United States they were assigned. However, several union sources said the newcomers were sent to bureaus in New York, Chicago, Boston, Dallas and Atlanta but not Los Angeles.

They were brought in on a volunteer basis during the strike “basically because we need extra support in the U.S., where we have bigger operations,” Ramsey said. She said the company had set no limit on how long the alien workers would be here.

But should the NABET strike keep going for a long time “we’re obviously not going to keep them here” and will probably bring in other staffers to replace them, she said.

Asked if the foreign force would be increased, she replied:

“The situation will always be reevaluated. . . . obviously we’re not going to bring (in) any more than those we need.”

She emphasized that all the foreign nationals are fulltime NBC News staffers, and that all have the necessary visas and work permits from the U.S. government.

“I can tell you right now that there’s no way that NBC is going to break any labor or immigration laws,” she said.

She also denied rumors that the foreign nationals, in return for agreeing to work at domestic NBC News bureaus during the strike, may have been promised NBC’s support should they seek the so-called “green cards” that allow foreigners to work in the United States.

“No, that’s not true,” Ramsey said. “Absolutely not. They know they’re going to be . . . eventually rotated out” of the United States.

Biggs-Adams said that in her union’s opinion, an alien temporarily allowed in the U.S. on a visa can have his or her petition for labor certification--required by federal law if they seek work here--denied or suspended “if the Secretary of Labor certifies that a strike or work stoppage is in progress” at the place where the alien intends to work.

The union struck NBC after the company--which was taken over by GE last year--put into effect a two-year contract that the union had rejected. No new talks have been scheduled, Biggs-Adams said.