Tegna Buyer Planned Layoffs It Didn’t Tell FCC About, Unions Say

Standard General LPtold investors it planned to eliminate jobs at Tegna Inc.after completing its $5.4 billion acquisition of the TV broadcaster, according to opponents, despite assertions to regulators that it had no such intention.

“Staffing cuts remained a constant, premeditated, carefully calibrated feature driving the proposed transaction,” unions trying to kill the deal said in an Oct. 27 filing with the Federal Communications Commission.

The claim by the NewsGuild-CWA and the National Association of Broadcast Engineers and Technicians-CWA relies upon confidential documents Standard General submitted to the regulator. The unions’ filing is partially redacted, with some details supporting ...