Jon Schleuss | The NewsGuild

Newsletter: Six Gannett newsrooms win big – together!

It’s been a couple of weeks since my last newsletter and there’s been a lot of news across our union!

Newsletter: Our strikers day in court

I’m heading to Pittsburgh next week for our strikers’ day in court. After 28 months on strike the National Labor Relations Board is pushing for an injunction against the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for violating U.S. labor law. Our case will be heard on Wednesday afternoon in the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals after winding through the NLRB’s process.

Newsletter: New York Magazine Union Reaches Contract Deal, Averts Walkout

Happy Valentine’s Day! There’s been a lot of news across the Guild. Let’s dive in!

Our members at New York Magazine reached a contract deal with management and averted a walkout. Workers told bosses they were ready to walk if management didn’t agree to a successor contract. The new tentative agreement includes wage increases and strong protections on artificial intelligence:

Newsletter: Lawsuit confronts Trump attack on NLRB

There has been so much news in the last week and most of it done by Guild members. And there’s just so much news it can feel exhausting.

I want to highlight the work done by our members at Wired who keep getting scoops while covering DOGE and Elon Musk. According to CNN’s Reliable Sources, WIRED’s reporters have helped lead a surge in subscriptions. Guild members are awesome. Keep doing great work!

Government photos of Gwynne Wilcox, Jennifer Abruzzo and Jessica Rutter

Trump fires first Black woman on NLRB, destroying its decision-making authority

President Trump’s actions in the past week have temporarily paralyzed the National Labor Relations Board. It’s the only federal agency that protects the rights of private sector workers to organize and pursue collective bargaining in the United States. The agency is led by a five member Board that makes final administrative rulings on unfair labor practices and issues make whole remedies for statutory violations.

Newsletter: NBC illegally laid off members (again)

Guild members at the Washington Post recently lined the hallway outside bargaining to stand with laid off colleagues. The company announced dozens of layoffs of our members on the business side, including members in Client Solutions and Public Relations. Those workers explained what they did for the Post while fighting for improvements to the severance package.

Newsletter: Another member impacted by LA fires

Thankfully the winds died down this week in Los Angeles and firefighters have improved containment of the Eaton and Palisades fires. We’re still watching the situation and ask you to check in on colleagues affected by the fires.

Nichola Groom, an energy and climate reporter at Reuters and member of The NewsGuild of New York, evacuated and she and her family lost their home in Altadena. They’ve found a spot to live for the next few months while they find a new home.

On Wednesday, the family shared an update:

How Law360’s Strike Led to Big Wins on Healthcare, Wages, and AI Job Security

Last week more than 250 Guild members at Law360 won a tentative agreement and ended their unfair labor practice strike. They won a five-year deal that lifts wages by an average of 12%, increases family leave to 14 weeks, includes an average $9,000 bonus and ensures strong job protections on artificial intelligence and a lot more.

Members at the legal news service, which are part of The NewsGuild of New York, voted overwhelmingly to ratify the deal Monday afternoon.

I interviewed Emma Cueto, a senior reporter and bargaining committee member, on Monday. When she’s not negotiating with her colleagues she’s covering midsize law firms on the legal industry team. She’s 34, from southern Illinois about 30 minutes outside St. Louis and currently lives in New York.

We talked about Law360’s open-ended strike, what led to it, how they made it so successful and what they won negotiating their second collective bargaining agreement.

Newsletter: We’re on strike at Law360!

Our members at Law360 are on an unfair labor practice strike this morning and I’m on the train to rally with them in New York this afternoon.

Management, led by LexisNexis Vice President Teresa Harmon, continues to demand that union members accept paltry raises that fail to seriously address rising costs of living and dramatically increased costs for healthcare. Throughout bargaining management has repeatedly dismissed the impact of inflation on members as irrelevant to negotiations about wages. All while refusing to agree to the union’s reasonable demands that the company remedy its March 2024 unlawful layoff of 26 union-represented workers.

ADD YOUR NAME: Support Law360 Union Journalists On Strike

NewsGuild Statement of Gannett’s shutdown of Reviewed.com

“As a union, our collective bottom line is the workers who prioritize the public interest and the communities they serve.”

NEW YORK – Today Gannett notified workers that it intends to shut down Reviewed, its product review site, effective this November. Gannett’s actions follow months of union-busting by the company with workers engaging in multiple walkouts as they bargained for a first contract.

Reviewed Union members, part of the NewsGuild of New York, overwhelmingly voted to unionize in March 2023 and struck for one week in July to protest bad-faith bargaining including unilateral changes to terms and conditions of employment and the Company’s refusal to bargain over economics. The Guild had previously filed charges over Gannett’s failure to provide requested information needed for bargaining and interference with employees’ rights under the NLRA when it alleged that Gannett made promises of benefits and/or threats of adverse consequences to an employee during a union election. The Reviewed Union is one of more than 50 Gannett bargaining units represented by The NewsGuild-CWA, all of whom have faced similar struggles against a company that prioritizes profit over people.