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Brenda Matthews vs. Clear Channel - go brenda!!!

indydood said:
BMVoicetracking said:
Brenda Matthews here:

Indy'dood' - 1. you must be a CC employee 2. You are told at Clear Channel to sign that non-compete or you can't go on the air. That I remember clearly. I have since (very recently) found out that they can't pull that on you. As far as negotiating? I had no contract - just a non compete. No contract, bonus structure or raises, for that matter in the last 5-6 years.

For the record, I was the #1 mid-day personality in town for all of the years that I worked at Magic. I worked extremely hard. My salary was stated incorrectly in the front page article here in Radio-info. I made a decent living, but not only through my salary, but by voicetracking 3 other stations out of market, and doing all of the endorsements/remotes/appearances that my morning show didn't snatch up.

Do not throw stones here..you don't know me. I've worked hard in this business for more years than you've been on this earth, and I won't be pushed around. The station, and the company that I want to work at, is waiting for this to be over so I can continue a successful career.
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I'm not a Clear Channel employee and I don't know you (obviously) so there are no "stones" being thrown here. Just making simple, basic observations. If working at Clear Channel was so oppressive, you probably should have found a better situation years ago.

Brenda, what I've read here you're probably a very nice person and talented personality and I hope you get some satisfaction. But it was YOU who chose to take this whole drama public, so you now have to live with the consequences and others weighing in on your situation. If you can't stand the heat- well, you know the rest.
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Yep, Clear Channel has the gold so they get to make the rules, right?
 
billalm said:
no one has even speculated on what the offer is. It's gotta be Sunny 105.9 or Mix 105.1.
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i think the offer is not-so-important, however...id believe its one of the above...makes the most sense...although none of us can really speak for Brenda herself, seeing what she says, seeing what others say, and seeing for myself how she dedicates herself to her job, imho this (non-compete BS) shows she really is eager to be a part of a station/company where she can have new success...no?

when push comes to shove, 6 months will indeed fly by, and i think its fair to say the Orlando audience is sympathetic and loyal to their presenters...after all, look no further than the Magic morning show, and one of its members cooperating with her non-compete from her former tv station, and you will see why magic's morning numbers have been fairly good in her tenure...

Where ever Brenda lands is unimportant...Clear Channel just buying time to think of an idea to keep Brenda's audience...while Brenda and her audience are somewhere else...and Brenda is enjoying the publicity of her case, and the promotion of her moving "somewhere"...
 
I think it is worth noting that the other company doesn't seem to be doing anything to overturn the no-compete. In this case, they seem to want Brenda, but not enough to threaten the status quo in the ownership fraternity by challenging the no-compete. I don't know any of the big boys that don't use them. It's funny that there was weeping, wailing and wringing of hands in public from the owners when Illinois banned no competes and to the best of my knowledge not having no competes to further exploit the employees has not been any great hardship.
 
So let me get this straight, Brenda's employment status is reduced from full time with benefits to part time (and I presume no benefits) and NOW they want to enforce a no compete? This is indentured servitude beyond the pale! What is this, the People's Republic of Clear Channel? If Brenda's situation occured in my home state, she would automatically be eligible to collect unemployment. Is this applicable in Florida? Has Brenda considered this?

Seeing it's a CC station in this mess, it's par for the course. I worked briefly for a CC station and they tried to put a NC on me...as a STRINGER! What's next? Enforce NC's on folks who leave a CC station to go work at McDonald's or Wal-Mart? UNBELIEVABLE! :mad:

Brenda, fight the good fight! Don't give up! Since someone on this board made mention to the old "reserve clause" in baseball, to quote the late Curt Flood: "Don't make them put the genie back in the bottle."

Oh, boy! Paid Colon Blow Infomercials used by stations as entertainment programming and now this! What's next? When Clear Channel goes private, will they change their name to Coco Chanel for better name equity? Geez! You hear stories like this, you'd think the mob had better morals and ethics.
 
My memory might not be as good as it once was, but didn't Mark Samansky, a former WJRR/WDIZ dj fight his non-compete while he was still employed, win, and go to work on WHTQ? If that was the case, what was the story behind it and can anything from that situation help Brenda?
 
The biggest handicap Matthews faces is a corrupt Florida Legislature that is pro-business and anti-worker, that has rewritten the noncompete laws in recent years to make them tighter and more pro-employer. Not to mention the incredible power held by broadcasting lobbyist Pat Roberts, who got the Florida Legislature to sic overworked local police on two-bit pirate stations, many of which happen to be owned by minorities at a time when these groups have been driven out of "legitimate" radio ownership! Don't think you'll see any "anti-nocompete" laws in the Half-your-pay-in-Sunshine State anytime soon!
 
Several things occur to me when reading this. First, Brenda probably knew what she was signing all those years ago and just didn't think it would be valid many years (and companies) later. Who knows if it will hold up but, it could.

The most surprising thing to me is Brenda's surprise about being moved to a voice tracking position (10K a year). The writing has been on the wall for literally YEARS that this was coming. How you can work for CC, be live on air, no matter your numbers, work ethic, title, etc. and NOT see that you'll be voice tracking your gig eventually is beyond me. It's just plain short sighted. Kind of like signing a non-compete clause and expecting it to not show up again in the future.

Going against the group think here, Brenda sounds like a girl who isn't getting what she wants and is throwing a tantrum about it. Any respect I had for her professionalism has gone out the window with the newspaper interviews and public cry babying. I bet she wasn't crying until the moment she got demoted.

Waaa, waaa, waaaa....
 
Seems to me that ad hominem attacks and "shoulda/woulda/coulda" comments are not germaine to the issue: Can the company, under the law, enforce the non-compete and prevent Ms. Matthews from taking a job elsewhere?

Unless and until there's a ruling, we're all just blowing smoke.
 
What I still can't get over is they can bump you from full time to part time (probably taking away medical insurance in the process, which is a big deal) and it's still considered "employed."

10K a year? Why not just give her a dollar a year?

If you go from paying me $40K a year to paying me a dollar a year, you still then have a say in what I do in my life, up to and including seeking employment elsewhere so I can pay for basic necessities like food and clothing?

Um, no you don't.
 
Face it the 40K jobs are going away quickly. The last station I did some part-time for is in a top 50 market and owned by a large group. There are only 2 full time on air people. The rest are PT voice tracking folks. Overnights are not even tracked, just let the music, spots and liners roll on the computer.

The days of making even a medocre living in radio are pretty much over. The smart people I know got out a long time ago. They saw where things were going long before I wanted to see it.
 
A Bunch of folks I worked with in Daytona were screwed over by Cheap Channel when WGNE was sold to MEGA...CC Sued to keep the 98.1 Employees from going on another station(even though they no longer had the property).Never did understand that one!And Yeah....none were offered jobs (as if anyone could learn Spanglish Overnight).Good Luck Brenda!Give 'Em Hell!!! ;)

John Barrett
 
Mike Sheridan said:
Face it the 40K jobs are going away quickly. The last station I did some part-time for is in a top 50 market and owned by a large group. There are only 2 full time on air people. The rest are PT voice tracking folks. Overnights are not even tracked, just let the music, spots and liners roll on the computer.

The days of making even a medocre living in radio are pretty much over. The smart people I know got out a long time ago. They saw where things were going long before I wanted to see it.
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This industry, like so many others has changed.
Like it or not, it is what it is.
 
RadioLuv,
Calling Brenda a cry baby and waaa waaa waaa is pretty cold and unprofessional in my view. What a mean post about someone who has gone from making a decent living to not being able to make a living and unable to do so for 6 months. I hope you never find yourself in that very same situation. I bet you'd take back what you said in a heart beat.
 
Cold, but hardly unprofessional. Far too many people in this business have the idea that the employee is always wrong in labor-management disputes. Helps to explain the pay scale. Non-competes far pre-date consolidation and have been used by many a skinflint owner of a small concrete-block radio shack in the woods to intimidate or stunt the progress of some poor radio schmoe who got sick of five bucks an hour and living in his car. What's amusing is to see billion-dollar radio conglomerates pulling the same kind of small-town b.s. Perhaps the ideal for them would be a legal system that prevents anyone from working in radio, anywhere. With the help of their well-connected lobbyist in Tallahassee, Pat Roberts, and our corrupt, anti-worker Florida Legislature, I'm sure they're working on it.

By the way, the only states that have made progress in getting rid of non-competes in radio are those where unions are way strong (California and Massachusetts).
 
I suppose it could be reasonable to think that a contract could include a term that says, if we fire you not for cause, we reserve the right to keep you from working, but then they pay you during that time.

If the deal said that you can't work, and we don't pay you for x months - so, not only do we not pay you but nobody is allowed to pay you - and that can happen at any arbitrary, random time that they feel like having that happen, I don't know if I could sign that deal and ever sleep again.

I would ask that that be struck from the deal before I signed it, or, we make it fair. I understand you wanting to keep me off the air, but you have to compensate me during that time.

And, if they refused to strike that from the deal or work that compromise then I guess that would reveal something about what kind of people they are.
 
Animatronic,
They ARE those kind of people and they don't care what you want. They say that if you don't like the terms of the deal - don't let the door hit you on the way out. It's very cruel and they go to NO lengths to cover it up either.

It's not like there are a bunch of jock positions in Orlando (especially if you're family and home are here). You have to take what you get or you can find some other job.

The problem with this whole deal is that CC doesn't want her, doesn't want to pay her, took her benefits and won't let her work at another place that offered her full time work in the only field she's ever worked/trained in (that she loves). It's really despicable and shouldn't be legal in the USA.
 
The real hope the company has is that if you're fired or want to quit, you'll move out of the market. They don't want you, but they don' wnat to take the chance that their decision will come back to bite 'em in the ass if you walk across the street and kick their asses.

That's the real purpose behind these things.
 
muskrat14 said:
The real hope the company has is that if you're fired or want to quit, you'll move out of the market. They don't want you, but they don' wnat to take the chance that their decision will come back to bite 'em in the ass if you walk across the street and kick their asses.

That's the real purpose behind these things.
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Yep, the multi billion dollar corporation wants to put all the risk on the shoulders of talent making $40,000 (am I being generous?) That seems fair to me... ::)
 
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