The journalists and news staff at Anchorage Daily News took a major step Tuesday toward forming a union. Organizers filed a petition for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board and have requested voluntary recognition from leadership at Anchorage Daily News.
Roughly 80% of the newsroom staff at ADN are publicly in support of joining the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, a local union of The NewsGuild-CWA. By forming the Anchorage News Guild, the workers aim to advocate for fair wages, increased transparency and a sustainable workplace environment.
The Anchorage News Guild will be the only newsroom in the state to currently have a union with The NewsGuild-CWA. The unionization effort at ADN is part of a larger wave in organizing throughout the industry with more than 7,500 media workers unionizing with The NewsGuild-CWA since 2020.
Megan Pacer, a digital audience producer for the paper, said ADN employees love their jobs, but want a “supportive and sustainable” work environment.
“I have colleagues who have gone without raises for almost 10 years. I have colleagues who have started families this year and in the past couple years without paid parental leave,” she said. “I have the benefit of living with a partner with whom I can split rent and expenses, but I have colleagues who don’t have that luxury in a city that’s just becoming more and more expensive to live in.”
Collectively, members of ADN’s unionization effort say they love working for the paper and feel honored to produce the award-winning journalism Anchorage deserves. They say they are unionizing to ensure they can continue to tell the stories of their community for decades to come.
“A key thing for everyone is a desire for fair wages and regular wages that can keep up with the cost of inflation,” Alex DeMarban said, who has been with ADN for about 15 years. “We want to get paid enough to continue working there and continue producing the high-quality product that Alaskans want.”
The community can show their support for the newsroom’s efforts by signing a petition at https://bit.ly/supportANG to urge leadership to grant voluntary recognition.