Cablevision Sues Union Workers for Defamation in New York
A New York cable company isn’t happy at the statements its new union has been making about its Internet speeds. New York-based Cablevision sued Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1109 and District 1 for defamation Wednesday in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, the state’s highest civil trial court, located in Mineola. The complaint named both elements of CWA as well as two people -- District 1 union organizer Tim Dubnau and Local 1109 Executive Vice President Chris Calabrese -- in their individual capacities, but the union denies any fault.
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All these parties engaged in “malicious dissemination of false and damaging statements about Cablevision ... and unlawful interference with Cablevision’s prospective business relations,” Cablevision’s court complaint said, saying the problem dates back to “at least” October. “The CWA Union has acted in a deceptive and libelous manner with the deliberate intention of harming Cablevision, misleading our customers and injuring the reputation of our company,” the cable company said in a statement Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bn77gi). “It is outrageous that the CWA and its Local 1109, which represents a small number of employees in one Cablevision facility in Brooklyn, would resort to these actions as part of a malicious campaign to intimidate our company. This is an insult to our Brooklyn employees and our customers, and we are taking legal action to ensure that this illegal behavior stops."
CWA fought back against the idea of any wrongdoing. “This is just a distraction,” Dubnau told us, saying Cablevision’s “m.o. [modus operandi] seems to be to bully people.” In a statement, he said Cablevision President “James Dolan can file all the bogus lawsuits he wants, we won’t be bullied and will continue to advocate for Cablevision workers and customers. Dolan’s threats to technicians that he would ‘leave Brooklyn behind’ in technology because of workers’ votes to join CWA and Cablevision’s refusal to offer automatic refunds to customers after [Superstorm] Sandy shows that Dolan is abusive to both workers and customers.” He reiterated claims that Cablevision’s Brooklyn customers have slower Internet speeds and said the actions and statements of Cablevision leadership “couldn’t be clearer.” “Dolan seems to like to make threats,” he told us.
The union has contended, starting in October when it announced a report and data analysis, that Cablevision’s broadband speeds are 25 percent lower in Brooklyn than in other areas of New York City such as the Bronx. CWA presents a template (http://bit.ly/12Islw5) on one of its websites where people can send Dolan a letter telling him “Don’t Leave Brooklyn Behind.” The letter template accuses Cablevision of providing lower levels of service in Brooklyn while questioning the company’s choice to provide “huge raises to all the technicians in the tri-state area except for those in Brooklyn.” Cablevision said in its complaint that the statements are “reckless” and made “with actual malice” because the union knew them to be false. The Cablevision complaint refers to CWA’s spread of this statistic throughout news interviews and in comments to elected officials, and describes multiple politicians complaining to the company of its alleged slower speeds in Brooklyn. Cablevision called the statements “patently false” in its complaint and said it “delivers services over identically provisioned, substantially equivalent infrastructure to both Brooklyn and the Bronx, and its Internet speeds are comparable to its other services in New York City.” These statements are especially damaging due to the “highly competitive nature of the market,” Cablevision said.
The second major contested claim involves how Cablevision responded to this fall’s Superstorm Sandy, which devastated parts of New York and New England. The union said the company failed to “offer automatic refunds,” as Dubnau said, and it orchestrated tens of thousands of robocalls shaming Cablevision, according to the complaint. But Cablevision said the union workers “were well aware from Cablevision’s public messaging about its storm rebate policy that Cablevision was offering refunds to all customers who reported a loss of service,” an offer that lasted 30 days after service restoration, the complaint said. “We have a right to educate the public,” Dubnau told us regarding the Sandy robocalls. The workers’ goal is to maintain a fair living wage for employees and affordable service for customers, he said.
Local 1109 said in early December (http://xrl.us/bn77p9) that Dolan has explicitly said he wants to punish workers who chose to unionize. The CWA union members of Cablevision represent “a small number of employees in only one Cablevision facility,” the company said. The members decided to unionize in early 2012. Cablevision warned CWA Nov. 30 and received no response, the complaint said, requesting a judgment that these statements on Cablevision speed amount to defamation and “tortious interference with prospective business relations.” The defendants must respond within a month, according to the complaint.