It’s been a couple of weeks since my last newsletter and there’s been a lot of news across our union!
We had our injunction hearing in Pittsburgh. I told you about it in our last newsletter. This is a 10(e) injunction hearing, pursued by the National Labor Relations Board. It’s extremely rare to get one requested and a three-judge panel is deciding whether to issue it.
Before the hearing about 80 supporters gathered near the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on the North Shore. We sang. We chanted. Striker Natalie Duleba posted the signatures of 800 supporters on the door. The nervous building security guards called the police. The police arrived, blocked traffic and stood around listening to the crowd sing labor songs.
Then we had to head to court.
A three-judge panel at the Third Circuit Court of Appeals listened to our case for about an hour. Striker Bob Batz covered the proceedings in the Pittsburgh Union Progress, our strike paper. Now we wait for that injunction decision and later an enforcement order on the NLRB’s strong ruling in our favor.
In the midst of this court battle, Rep. Summer Lee, whose district represents the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette strikers, sent words of solidarity to the strikers at a recent rally for Gwynne Wilcox of the NLRB.
“Those workers have stood their ground for two years,” Rep. Lee said as she celebrated workers for walking out on bosses that refused to recognize their rights and dignity as workers.
“They stood the ground for each and every one of us,” Rep. Lee declared.
Journalists at six major Gannett newsrooms averted a walkout and secured first contracts in New York and New Jersey. Members of the APP-MCJ Guild and Hudson Valley NewsGuild unanimously ratified the contracts with 97% support from members.
After three years of contentious bargaining, workers achieved significant pay raises, up to $23,000 for some, robust job protections through just cause, as well as guardrails around the use of AI.
Asbury Park Press workers celebrated their contract ratification vote win in a Twitter post filled with photos of workers and a special shoutout to their ‘strike vote siblings’ at Hudson Valley NewsGuild who they leaned on for camaraderie and support in their contract fight with Gannett.
Journalists at The Bergen Record in New Jersey are now planning to walk out after 95% of members authorized a work stoppage over Gannett’s failure to agree to a fair contract.
“Gannett continues to bargain in bad faith and insult us at the bargaining table. Our members’ walkout vote shows we won’t let Gannett bully us into submission,” said Kaitlyn Kanzler, Record Guild unit chair and courthouse reporter for The Record. “We’re willing to do what it takes to get a contract done. There is no journalism without us, the dedicated journalists who live in and report on North Jersey’s local communities.”
Gannett has engaged in bad faith bargaining, made unilateral changes, failed to provide information to the journalists, discriminated against journalists and unilaterally automated and subcontracted out work, including by using AI.
NBC Digital NewsGuild members also ratified their first contract in an overwhelming 94% vote after nearly 5 years of organizing. The three-year deal protects workers during corporate restructuring, delays announced layoffs and secures additional pay, health care, and rehire rights for targeted employees.
“This contract is a huge step forward for journalists at NBC News,” said Tate James, documentary video editor and NBC Digital NewsGuild Chair. “We will now have the job security essential to fighting for transparency and accountability without fear.”
Highlights of the deal include:
- Immediate pay increases of as much as 17%, with 9% minimum over the life of the 3-year deal
- First-ever salary minimums, with a floor of $65,000 by last year of the agreement
- Strong new protections around job security and layoffs, including rehire rights and just cause without exception
- An end to forced arbitration in cases of discrimination and harassment
- Extended workday and weekend pay policies that provide compensation for extra work
“NYGuild members contribute to the reach and value of NBC News every day,” said Susan DeCarava, president of The NewsGuild of New York. “I’m glad that NBC is finally recognizing their essential work by agreeing to a contract that enshrines the wages and workplace protections they deserve.”
Canada will soon have elections that could determine funding for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and other local news initiatives. We have more than 4,100 members in Canada and about 3,200 work at the CBC. The Canadian Media Guild, our local union that reps workers at the CBC, launched a Local Matters campaign.
“Now more than ever, to counter the rise of misinformation, Canadians need access to local news, fact-based journalism, and public broadcasting that shine a light on the truth, amplify the voices of Canadians,” the petition reads. Sign the petition and follow their campaign. The CBC also launched a “Save the CBC” campaign. Forward Canada and Friends of Canadian Media also launched campaigns to support the funding of public media.
We’re also fighting to protect funding for public media in the U.S. We’ve launched an effort alongside CWA and NABET, which is our sibling union that represents workers at several PBS and NPR stations. You can sign onto that effort here.
We sat down with author Eric Blanc and Guild member organizer Taylor Dolven to discuss how Guild members and workers across the industry are proving that the worker-to-worker organizing model is key to winning against corporate union-busting and is reshaping the labor movement.
The conversation took place a couple weeks ago at our ‘We Are the Union’ book talk where Blanc broke down how his new book shows how a worker-to-worker organizing effort can help us all win big. And we’re doing that at the Guild.
Here’s a quick excerpt from our conversation:
Schleuss: Eric, you’ve written about labor history for years. What makes the worker-to-worker model so different compared to other organizing approaches?
Blanc: If you read the book, you’ll see one of its key themes is that The NewsGuild is doing the kind of organizing that other unions should be replicating. Other unions are adopting similar models, but the Guild really stands out, so it’s exciting to be here and talk to you all directly.
So what makes this model different? One key contrast is with what I call staff-intensive unionizing, which has been the norm since at least the ’80s, if not longer. The typical ratio in that model is one staff organizer for every 100 workers. At its best, this can be effective, especially when staff focus on training workers, but it just doesn’t scale. There aren’t enough staffers, funding or time to organize millions of people this way.
The question I try to answer in the book is: What kind of organizing can win at scale in today’s context? In some ways, I argue for a return to the spirit of the 1930s, when workers took ownership of their own organizing drives. That kind of worker-led model is possible again today, but it has to take new forms because organizing is actually harder now. The working class is more atomized, so it requires more effort to build social relationships and spread the movement. The book explores how to do that at scale.
You can read and watch the entire interview here.
Workers at The Union for Contemporary Art announced their intent to unionize and faced immediate retaliation by management, followed by strong statements of support from their community.
The Union for Contemporary Art is an arts and culture nonprofit in Omaha, Nebraska. The staff joined The NewsGuild-CWA by way of the Denver Newspaper Guild to form The Union Union. That’s right. The Union Union.
Last month, a supermajority of staff signed union cards and demanded voluntary recognition at the start of the working day on February 25, 2025. Management responded by blocking union members from delivering their union cards and refusing to meet with them. Later that day, five longtime staff members, all union supporters, were abruptly terminated. These employees, with over 25 years of combined service, held essential roles such as leading artist workshops and mentoring youth.
After the firings, staffers received 2,500 statements of support from artists, community members and friends. One statement from a community member read, “I literally just bought a 3-month membership to get back into ceramics, but more importantly, I’m a former non-profit worker that was unjustly fired and cornered into an NDA and now I’m a union member. I won’t cross a line if a line is set.”
You can add your message of support by contributing to the worker’s letter-writing campaign here.
Workers from the Guild at Bloomberg Industry Group (BIG) rallied to save retiree healthcare benefits from being cut by management in contract negotiations.
“Despite Bloomberg INDG touting record revenues in 2024 and boasting that the company is on track to become a billion-dollar company, Management doesn’t think our members deserve the same rate of pay increases and bonuses we bargained for in 2022,” the Guild said in a statement.
The BIG Guild also tweeted directly at Michael Bloomberg, criticizing him for selling out retirees in favor of a new lobby for the Bloomberg INDG HQ:
You can follow the workers on Twitter @GuildatBIG and share their posts to boost their messages and updates. Workers are nearing the end of tough contract negotiations and need all the support we as Guild members can offer.
Guild members marched in Selma for the 60th Bridge Crossing Jubilee, honoring workers & civil rights leaders who came before us. Sixty years ago, activists faced brutal attacks on the Edmund Pettus Bridge for demanding the right to vote. The message of this year’s event was clear: voting rights are under attack, and democracy is at risk.
(Pictured, from left to right, are APWU unit chair Tim Fitzgerald, WBNG VP Lisa Wright and Lee Warnecke from the SPLC Union.)
The march is a powerful reminder that the fight for labor rights and civil rights has always been deeply connected. Lisa Wright, Vice President of WBNG who was at the march reflected on the experience saying, “We are part of a larger movement—one that surrounds us today. We have to stay active, bring our communities in, and keep organizing.”
Last week news union leaders from Canada and around the world joined me for a conversation about President Trump’s attacks on the press and how they’re having global repercussions. I ran through the several things the Trump administration has done since taking office and told the global audience that the principles of a free press and free speech are part of the United States’ Constitution. It’s been very concerning to watch Trump attack something that is so core to the foundation of a democratic country, not mentioning Trump’s administration’s wide use of misinformation and disinformation.
The International Federation of Journalists, a global federation of media worker unions, launched a call for global solidarity after the event.
Annick Forest, President of the Canadian Media Guild said at the event, “People must have access to news and be able to decide. Journalists must stick together and bring information to people to make up their own mind. Freedom is under attack now, not just freedom of the press.”
Randy Kitt, director of media for UNIFOR said, “Our journalists are harassed, abused, denied access to politicians. Conservative politicians are trying to change the narrative from facts to fiction.”
The climate for journalists and media workers has become increasingly unsafe – especially online. With this in mind, we reached out to Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. (IRE) to plan a lunch-hour webinar where you can learn how to protect yourself from online threats before and after they happen.
The session will be held from 1 to 2PM ET March 27 via Zoom. You will learn how to put up safeguards to protect yourself and how to respond when your work and your safety are threatened.
Finally, Gwynne Wilcox went back to work Monday morning! Wilcox was the NLRB member fired illegally by President Trump in January. Last week a federal judge said her firing violated federal law and ordered her to be reinstated. Her firing denied the board of a quorum, which destroyed the agency’s decision-making authority. Wilcox was the first member of the NLRB to be removed by a U.S. president since the board was created 90 years ago.
The framers of the US constitution “made clear that no one in our system of government was meant to be king – the President included – and not just in name only”, the judge Beryl A Howell, wrote in the ruling. This fight will continue. The Trump administration asked for a stay over the weekend, which the judge denied. The administration is appealing the case to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. But for now, the only U.S. agency that protects the rights of private sector workers to organize and collective bargain is functioning. Of course, a potential government shutdown threatens that and the rest of the government with a deadline this week.
Whatever happens, keep fighting for yourself and your colleagues. That’s how Guild members win.
In solidarity,
Jon Schleuss
President
The NewsGuild-CWA