On May 1st, 1977, the Air Personalities, News Guys & Money Girls walked out on strike over objections to the company's plans to run voice tracks on the AM while the same jock was live on the FM.  The union's threats to advertising agencies in town to pull spots with WPGC air talent on them from other stations was deemed by the National Labor Relations Board to be illegal, constituting a secondary boycott, outlawed by the Taft-Hartley Act.  First Media subsequently replaced the entire air staff (but for one person who crossed the picket line) with staffers from other stations in the chain.

Keith MacDonald writes:

Here's the real strike story:

The Marriott brothers owned WPGC... it was the only union company owned by the Marriotts anywhere, and they wanted the union gone. The union minimum in '77 was around 18k. We where hopeful of maybe 20k. The company negotiated everything but salaries, refusing to do so till 11pm on the final day of the contract. Then with 1 hour to go they offered 7k immediately, 7k more at the start of year 2 and 5k more at the start of year 3. Thus we would go from 18k to 37k in 2 years. Wow!

Only one catch.... we had to give up the 'deem to be live clause'. What? We didn't know what that was. So in the hour left on the contract Evelyn Fryman (DC Union chief) explained to us how it was the clause on which AFTRA was founded. Seems jocks in New York were being paid for 5 day weeks, but had to record shows for air on the 6th and 7th days. The clause said, that if you record a show, and it airs out of shift, you get paid for the time it takes to record it, and the time it airs.

And as they left the room, they told us that with or WITHOUT the union, the offer was on the table... HINT HINT HINT. Well, we spent the rest of our hour trying to figure out just how the company planned to use this. I mean it must be a big deal if it's worth 19k a year per jock. What were they up to?

Well it turns out we were missing the forest for the trees. The only reason the company wanted this clause gone, is because National AFTRA would not approve the contract without it. They figured we'd see the light, decertify the union, and take the deal. They get no union, we get big bucks.

Evelyn must have known that was what the Marriotts wanted, but she never said so. She just kept telling us all the awful stuff that might happen without 'deem to be live'.... and pretty soon our hour was up... and we were on strike. Oh and once you're on strike... it's illegal to decertify a union. So to talk the deal then, we had to cross a picket line, and give up union work forever. As a result Jim Elliott, who figured this was his last radio job anyway, took the deal... the rest of us found new employers.

This strike was not about raises or benefits or clauses. It was about union busting on the Marriott's part, and a bunch of DJ's who didn't see the light till too late.

 

Shelby Austin writes:

My most vivid memory has to be the Strike in May of 1977. Truckers trying to run the Lincoln (WPGC Money Car) off the road while I was driving it, watching the picketers out of my apartment window, picking up non-union jocks at the airport...and yes I was on the air doing the Sunday morning news...it was AWFUL.

 

Dan Mason writes:

On the Strike and its aftermath in 1977

In the beginning it was total chaos...I got into town about midnight just as the strike began...I did morning drive the first morning and Bill Prettyman was reading the news believe it or not.....He sounded pretty good by the way...Little by little we hired new people...Dave Foxx came from our Provo station...we hired Brandt Miller to do afternoons...Waylon Richards had worked with me a few years before in Kansas City and finally Liz Kiley came from Grand Rapids,. I believe she was a former school teacher.....Within 4 months, the staff began to gel and within a year, WPGC had tied WMAL for the number one position in the market....It was quite an accomplishment...I left to take a VP/GM job at KTSA / KTFM in San Antonio and Scott Shannon came in and even made it a better station.

 

 

Epilogue:

Did the Marriotts ever get their come-uppance?

Yes. Ironically, when Jim Elliott returned to the station to do mornings he was never offered a contract; it was simply done on a handshake. Little did the Marriotts know that single mistake would ultimately lead to the demise of the station five years later which began when Elliott & Woodside left WPGC in 1982 to go to Q107. With no contract in place to enforce, First Media had no legal ground in preventing their departure.

 

Miscellaneous

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