Inside Cablevision’s War With Big Labor

On June 23, James Dolan’s cable company, Cablevision, finally answers allegations that it strong-armed employees during a bruising, three-year tangle with the communication workers’ union. James L. Dolan is not a man to dodge a fight. When the billionaire owner of the New York Knicks and Rangers received an emotional e-mail from a lifelong fan begging him to sell his hapless basketball team, for example, Dolan told 72-year-old Irving Bierman that he was a “hateful mess” and an “alcoholic maybe.” But tiffs like these are nothing compared to the bruising three-year war of attrition that Dolan and Cablevision, the multibillion-dollar cable company he runs, have fought with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union that some employees voted to join in 2012.

Allegations of misconduct have been hurled at both sides. In recent months, regional offices of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency that supervises union elections and investigates unfair labor practices, has accused Dolan and Cablevision of violating federal labor law by allegedly threatening employees, bargaining in bad faith, unfairly firing employees, and raising the salaries only of non-union workers. In a statement, a Cablevision spokesman responded: “This is a ridiculous and false attack which is not worthy of either a response or any attention from readers.” A contract between CWA was finally signed, only hours before tipoff at the February 13 NBA All-Star Game, hosted at Dolan’s Madison Square Garden. But the scars from the long, expensive fight remain raw.