Lester Holt, Rachel Maddow and other high-paid stars were absent on Thursday when rank-and-file staffers from NBC News and MSNBC walked off the job amid an ugly labor dispute.
The unionized workers who walked off the job were largely from digital components of NBC News, MSNBC and "Today," as on-air talent is not part of the NBC Guild. While a show of solidarity for the rank-and-file would have gone a long way, none of the on-air stars showed up.
NewsGuild president Jon Schleuss, who insists "NBC is breaking the law" by laying off unionized employees amid bargaining, feels it’s "hypocritical" for progressive companies to mistreat rank-and-file workers.
"One of the things that NBC has done is market itself as a digital first leader, and also maybe as more progressive than some other networks, right? At the end of the day the employer has an obligation to follow federal law and by disrespecting workers and doing illegal layoffs they’re violating the law, and it’s hypocritical for any employer to do that, especially NBC and MSNBC," Schleuss told Fox News Digital.
MSNBC is outspokenly progressive and hosts such as Chris Hayes and Mehdi Hasan have praised labor unions in recent memory. But Schleuss took the high road when asked if he would have liked to see on-air talent marching in solidarity with his guild members.
"They’ve got contracts, too. They’re probably union members, too, they know what it’s like and every single person at NBC should be fighting to make the company follow federal law," Schleuss said.
NBC News and MSNBC did not immediately respond when asked if on-air talent were allowed to support the unionized workers.
If on-air personalities want to help, Schleuss thinks they can simply cover the story.
"One of the things that every journalist at every single news organization has an obligation to do is be transparent and be accountable to their viewers and their readers," he said. "It’s imperative for NBC and MSNBC to cover this own struggle and cover it in the right way, by being truthful about the fact that the company is violating federal law."
Last year, New York Times Magazine reporter and "1619 Project" architect Nikole Hannah-Jones appeared when New York Times staffers staged a similar walkout. Hannah-Jones, arguably the Times' most high-profile staffer, spoke at a rally for the paper's Guild members and said it was "really important for me to come and show solidarity, particularly with our lower-wage workers."
However, New York City comptroller Brad Lander, D., quickly shot down any comparison between Hannah-Jones and the likes of Holt, Hayes and Maddow.
"Well, she’s a member of the union there," Lander told Fox News Digital of Hannah-Jones during the rally outside NBC’s New York City headquarters at the famed Rockefeller Center.
"The issues that the workers have here is with the companies, with NBCUniversal, the set of folks who are at the bargaining table and still laying off workers, it’s not with the talent," Lander continued. "The folks who make the decisions about what the contract will be, who will get paid, about who will get fired or laid off, those are management and that’s who I think those folk’s fight is with."
NBC News has insisted the guild is misrepresenting the facts and wants to work toward an agreement.
"We are disappointed by the NewsGuild’s continued attempts to misrepresent the facts while we work in good faith with them to reach an agreement," an NBC News spokesperson told Fox News Digital prior to the rally.
Fox News' Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
