Teamsters Question FCC Requirements for Owner Control in Tribune Deal
December 12 2007 - 4:03PM
PR Newswire (US)
Teamsters File Request for Reconsideration WASHINGTON, Dec. 12
/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today the International Brotherhood of
Teamsters sought reconsideration of the Federal Communications
Commission's (FCC) decision granting the Tribune Company's
(NYSE:TRB) transfer of ownership request and its associated
requests for waiver of the Commission's newspaper/broadcast cross
ownership rules. The deal involves transferring 100% ownership of
the Company to employees through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan
(ESOP) but provides employee owners no role in the governance of
either the ESOP or the operating company. Instead, real estate
entrepreneur Sam Zell, who will not have an ownership interest,
along with his handpicked Board of Directors and ESOP trustee, will
control the company including its fourteen newspapers, twenty-three
television stations and one radio station. "Apparently the FCC was
tuned out during its public listening tour," said James P. Hoffa,
General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
"In its rush to judgment, the Commission has failed to enforce its
current rules or protect the public interest." The Teamsters, which
represents 2,000 Tribune employees, raised concerns with the FCC
about the buyout structure of the Tribune Company. The Teamsters
believe the structure violates the FCC's requirement (Section 310-D
of the Communications Act) that stations be controlled by their
owners, and not by Sam Zell, a trust established for the benefit of
members of his family, and a pre-selected ESOP trustee. This third
party ownership violates the FCC's requirement that stations be
controlled by their owners, and undermines the public interest and
the FCC's mission of promoting localism and diversity. In oral
testimony at the Commission's October 31st public hearing -- the
last of a series by the agency to consider the impact of broadcast
cross ownership rules on localism -- the Teamsters alerted the
Commission to violations the deal posed. The testimony, a summary
of which also was filed in the Tribune proceeding, reads in part:
"This separation of ownership and management is unprecedented and
would set a new, and very low, standard for compliance with the
Communication Act's public interest requirements, which are the
basis for the localism and diversity principles in broadcasting,"
said George Tedeschi, International Vice President of the
International Brotherhood of Teamsters and employee of the
Tribune's New York Newsday. Founded in 1905, the International
Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.4 million hardworking men and
women throughout the United States and Canada. DATASOURCE:
International Brotherhood of Teamsters CONTACT: Galen Munroe of the
International Brotherhood of Teamsters, +1-202-624-6904 Web Site:
http://www.teamster.org/
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