CNN will pay $70 million to settle 15-year-old labor dispute

CNN will pay more than $70 million to settle a 15-year-old labor dispute stemming from a contract with a third party company.

A group of more than 200 camera operators, broadcast engineers and technicians working in the network’s New York and Washington, D.C. studios were laid off in 2014.

The workers in question were employed by a third party company called Team Video Services and worked under the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians union.

However, when CNN’s deal with Team Video ended, the employees were laid off and some claimed they were not considered for re-employment because of their connections with the union.

CNN maintained that it was not required to collectively bargain with the workers after the contract expired because it was not technically their employer during the Team Video contract.

A court ruled in 2017 that CNN became the workers’ “successor” employer after its contract with Team Video ended.

However, the Republican-controlled National Labor Relations Board overturned a Barack Obama era finding that the workers were “joint employees” of Team Video and CNN because CNN dictated the terms of their employment and supervised some of their work.

The settlement is still subject to approval by the NLRB.