Former on-camera meteorologist and Air Force Reserves Captain Nicole Mitchell has filed a lawsuit against The Weather Channel -- owned by NBC, GE, and Bain Capital -- for military discrimination. Captain Mitchell is a member of the Air Force's famous Hurricane Hunters division (the professionals who fly aircraft into hurricanes to gather data on it). According to a press release posted to Nicole Mitchell's public Facebook fan page, the grounds for the lawsuit is The Weather Channel's violation of The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (“USERRA”) which prohibits discrimination and retaliation against service members due to their military obligations.
Nicole Mitchell was a stellar meteorologist and television personality with The Weather Channel (TWC) for many years, and her lawyer claims that she was fired because her military obligations were inconvenient to TWC's schedule and bottom line. As the following 30 minute press conference shows, TWC became openly hostile towards Captain Mitchell and the scheduling of her military assignments. They first began making Mitchell's schedule difficult because of her military obligations (provided to The Weather Channel 9 months in advance). The company soon took Mitchell off of the channel's top rated morning show "Your Weather Today" and stuck her with an overnight shift that made it impossible for Mitchell to make it to Mississippi in time for her military assignments, forcing her to take personal leave in order to make the long drive from Atlanta to Gulfport MS. Executives at TWC got so frustrated with her military duties interfering with the company's schedule that they decided not to renew Captain Mitchell's contract, effectively firing her.
The lawsuit was originally filed in September and was never meant to go public, but because The Weather Channel/NBC/Bain Capital are forcing the matter to go to arbitration, and given that TWC's parent company NBC Universal touts itself as military-friendly, Captain Mitchell and her lawyers decided to make the issue public.
Even worse than that is that The Weather Channel has a Hurricane Hunters series coming up, and Mitchell's lawyers allege that the film crew was ordered to go to excruciating lengths to exclude Captain Mitchell from the entire filming of the series.
The Weather Channel has a shameful history with its employees, up to and including protecting former on-camera meteorologist Bob Stokes from claims that he sexually harassed multiple employees of The Weather Channel by punishing female employees who reported him. Stokes was eventually fired and lost a sexual harassment suit filed against him.
Speaking on a personal level, The Weather Channel was the reason that I got so interested in weather. I grew up in the 1990s when they were actually about the weather. It was a great, well-respected institution "back in the day." Now that they've switched over to entertainment after being bought by NBC/Mitt Romney's Bain Capital, they're a cesspool of ratings, money, and crap.
As Captain Mitchell pointed out in the press conference above, this ordeal is especially shameful given that Mitt Romney's Bain Capital is one of The Weather Channel's parent companies. This needs to be shared far and wide not only so Captain Mitchell and discriminated-against veterans get the justice and protection they deserve, but so Mitt Romney has to answer as to why his company endorses discrimination against members of our armed forces.
5:40 PM PT: Two quotes from Captain Mitchell in the press conference embedded above:
"And you need to think about that for a second.; the fact that there are companies out there that are openly harassing active military members. It's not okay to discriminate against race, or sex, so why should it be any different for someone that's serving their country? It's a protected right as well. And it's not right to do that to someone that serves their country."
"Speaking to you guys today was never part of our plan. We filed the lawsuit last year and we managed to fly under the radar and we did that for a couple of reasons. First, I believe that you should give people the chance to do the right thing. So, we tried to work with them to see if they would work with us, try to fix things, and that didn't happen. And we also want the legal channels to work their course, and we've been doing that. And there was the personal risk. It's hard to look for a job and be known as the person who filed a lawsuit.
I've also had the problem of having my reputation damaged for not renewing, because as we said, in this business it looks like you were fired. At least that's the perception, that you did something wrong. I've had potential employers, all of them have asked what happened, and I have had the direct question 'What did you do?'
[...]
I didn't want my reputation ruined anymore than it was. [...] And these are big companies. Not just for my civilian career, and I am still serving in the military. You're looking at NBC, which has lots of political and military connections. The main owner was GE, which has the most extensive military contracts that you could imagine. And there's Bain Capital, which is tied to a presidential campaign. You know those are people who, if they wanted to make my life difficult in the military, they could, so it's scary. But as we got more through the process, faced more of the issued, and heard from more people as we've gone through this process, I did feel it wasn't right for us to be silent about it anymore. There are so many of these USERRA cases out there and so many people that don't have the opportunity to have a voice. It happens more than you think, as I said."