John J. Walsh, the acting director of the labor board’s regional office in Brooklyn, said in an interview on Thursday that his office would issue a complaint against Cablevision, saying the company “has bargained with no intent to reach an agreement” — in what several workers said was a strategy to undermine support for their union, the Communications Workers of America.

The fight has been particularly vitriolic and visible, not least because the family that controls Cablevision, the Dolans, also controls the Knicks and Rangers.

This week, the labor board’s Brooklyn office is accusing Cablevision of engaging in bad-faith bargaining by failing to provide union negotiators with needed information, by retracting previously agreed-upon proposals and by refusing to meet on a regular basis. Cablevision, Mr. Walsh said, has also insisted on “proposals that no — quote unquote — self-respecting union could accept, such as the unfettered right to subcontract work.”

The two sides have not settled on a contract since the Brooklyn employees voted 180 to 86 to unionize 15 months ago, motivated in part because Verizon’s unionized cable installers were earning about one-third more than they did. The vote made them the only group among Cablevision’s 17,000 employees to unionize.

Cablevision disputed the board’s claims. Charles R. Schueler, a company spokesman, called the accusation of bad-faith bargaining “absurd on its face.”

“We have a complete package of contract proposals on the table in front of the communications workers, and we are awaiting a response,” he added.

Mr. Schueler said the board was “factually inaccurate” in asserting that Cablevision had retracted proposals or avoided talking. “The company has participated in 25 negotiating sessions with the union, with 4 more scheduled,” he said.

On Monday, the labor board’s regional office for Manhattan and the Bronx said it would issue a complaint accusing Mr. Dolan of illegally telling Cablevision workers in the Bronx that they would be excluded from training and job opportunities if they voted to unionize. That office also said Cablevision had illegally offered better pay and benefits to workers in the Bronx and elsewhere to discourage them from unionizing. The Bronx workers voted 121 to 43 against unionizing last June.

Neither complaint constitutes a finding of wrongdoing. The cases are likely to be heard by an administrative law judge.

On Monday, Cablevision said in a statement that the board’s allegations were inaccurate and that the communications workers’ assertions were “part of their ongoing campaign to damage Cablevision’s reputation.”

Mr. Walsh said his office had told Cablevision that it could head off a formal complaint by reaching a settlement with the labor board and the union.

He said the Brooklyn complaint would also accuse Cablevision of acting illegally by permanently replacing 22 workers in January when they were seeking to meet with a company official to discuss the stalled negotiations. The company reinstated them over the last two months — after the union had complained to the labor board that they had been fired illegally — and the board is seeking back pay for them.

Mr. Schueler said that with those employees back at work, “we consider the matter largely behind us.”

Frustrated that the union has failed to reach a contract, dozens of Cablevision workers in Brooklyn have petitioned the labor board to hold a vote to determine whether the workers favor getting rid of the union.

Because of the board’s complaint against Cablevision, it will dismiss the petition, Mr. Walsh said. “We have evidence that there is a causal nexus between the employer’s unfair labor practices in the failure to bargain in good faith and the employees’ disaffection from the union and the employees’ coming to us wanting to have a decertification election,” he said.

But Mr. Schueler said, “It would be outrageous if this election were not allowed to proceed and our employees’ voices were not allowed to be heard.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/12/nyregion/cablevision-attacked-again-by-nlrb-in-new-york.html?partner=rss&emc=rss