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Federal Court judge denies temporary restraining order to striking Charter/Spectrum workers

September 27, 2017 By Rob Abruzzese, Legal Editor Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Electrical Workers Local Union No. 3 members, who have been on strike since March, were denied a temporary restraining order this week that will force them into arbitration with Charter/Spectrum. Eagle file photo by Derek Jordan
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Union employees of Charter Communications/Spectrum, who have been on strike since March 28, suffered a setback when Judge Jack Weinstein, of the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, denied a temporary restraining order (TRO) seeking a stay of arbitration on Monday.

Charter/Spectrum, formerly Time Warner, is seeking to go to arbitration with IBEW Local No. 3 members, and the union in turn filed for a preliminary injunction staying the arbitration hearing. Weinstein denied the injunction because he felt that the union “had not fulfilled its burden of demonstrating irreparable harm” that would occur to them by going into arbitration.

“It has decided not to participate in the arbitration, so it will not expend time or resources arbitrating the dispute in the absence of a preliminary injunction,” Weinstein wrote in his order. “Even if it chose to participate, the cost of adjudicating a dispute on its own does not constitute irreparable injury.”

The judge defined irreparable harm in his order as “certain and imminent harm for which a monetary award does not adequately compensate.”

The judge noted that precedent splits on whether a party suffers irreparable harm if it is forced to arbitrate, and wrote that Local 3 had not demonstrated irreparable harm.

At issue is whether Local 3 and Charter/Spectrum were parties in a valid collective bargaining agreement (CBA) in March 2017 when they went on strike. If CBA is determined to be valid then union members may be found to have violated a no-strike agreement in the contract.

Without a TRO, the two sides will head to arbitration to determine the issue.

Weinstein did grant a temporary stay of the arbitration on Sept. 15 that remains in effect until Oct. 9, which allows Local 3 to apply to the Court of Appeals for a stay.

About 1,800 IBEW Local 3 workers went on strike six months ago after failing to reach agreement over proposed changes to retirement and health care plans. Negotiations have been fruitless and employees regularly march outside the Time Warner building in Sunset Park. Charter Communications bought Time Warner Cable (TWC) for $55 billion in May 2015 and renamed it Spectrum.

 

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