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.
Continue reading “Newsletter: NBC illegally laid off members (again)”
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:
Continue reading “Newsletter: Another member impacted by LA fires”
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.
Continue reading “How Law360’s Strike Led to Big Wins on Healthcare, Wages, and AI Job Security”
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
“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.
Continue reading “NewsGuild Statement of Gannett’s shutdown of Reviewed.com”
It has been a very busy 2024! Just yesterday more than 200 workers across Tribune Publishing struck seven publications over the owner’s refusal to provide raises and retain a 401k match that employees depend on. The owner? Alden Global Capital, the hedge fund murdering America’s newsrooms.
America’s journalists are standing up and fighting back.
“We didn’t go into this job for the money, but Alden’s cuts have hit so close to the bone that we can’t even do our jobs as journalists anymore. Enough is enough. Journalists deserve to be able to retire with dignity,” said Madeline Buckley, criminal courts reporter at the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Tribune Guild unit chair. “The company’s insulting proposals on wages and benefits puts our future at risk, along with our ability to continue to produce the hard-hitting journalism this city relies upon.”
Continue reading “Newsletter: 24 strikes in two weeks? Yep!”
At 11:30 a.m. Central Time Wednesday staffers at the San Antonio Report walked off the job after hearing that their colleague Sandra Santos was laid off by the nonprofit newsroom in Texas.
“This is exactly the type of thing we organized to prevent so we could find solutions for the organization and the members,” said Isaac Windes, an education reporter at the San Antonio Report.
Continue reading “Workers at San Antonio Report walk off the job in protest of illegal layoff”NewsGuild-CWA members at Law360 are on strike today. Workers at the legal news service owned by LexisNexis are fed up with management’s illegal and stalling tactics at the bargaining table and started a one-day work stoppage in protest over management’s behavior.
The Law360 group is special to me (and yes, every member and bargaining unit is special to me). But Law360 members paved the way for my colleagues to organize at the Los Angeles Times. Law360 unionized in August of 2016 and set up a union website. We straight-up copied their “Union busting 101” page and most of their website. Law360 members applied aggressive collective action tactics, which we copied at the Times up to our union win in January 2018.
Continue reading “Newsletter: Law360 went on strike this morning”
We have some good news to share with all of you.
As many of you know, we have been fighting a lawsuit filed by journalist Mike Elk since 2021. Elk targeted four Guild journalists, the international union and the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, accusing us of breach of contract, misrepresentation, defamation and other claims. The suit came in the wake of sexual harassment allegations in our Pittsburgh local. We updated you on the progress of the suit against us in October.
The suit has been a distraction from our work to improve the working conditions of our 26,000 members across North America. With that in mind, we have settled, with no admission of any liability, the suit with Elk and will make a $10,000 donation directly to Casa San Jose, a nonprofit Elk selected.
We are happy to move on and focus our time and efforts on winning contracts and protecting our members.
Subscribe to our newsletter here.
Last week workers at Scholastic ratified a new contract that includes raises of 4.75%, 3.5% and 3.5% over three years. The new salary floor starts at $65,000 a year, mirroring wins at the New York Times, Insider and Conde Nast. Workers also won a $3,250 ratification bonus, added health and safety provision, a transparent and fair hybrid work agreement and they continued to fight off a management’s rights clause. I got to join the Scholastic rally during their one-day strike last month and started tearing up talking about how proud I am to be part of a union with folks who help young kids explore new worlds through reading. (Speaking as this kid who grew up in rural Arkansas.) Scholastic members are amazing!
Workers at the AFL-CIO also ratified a successor contract this weekend. The new contract includes raises of 13.25% over four years. Recent previous agreements only won signing bonuses, with no percent increase to staffers bottom lines. The raises only happened because workers put pressure on the boss, in this case the leaders of the AFL-CIO. They marched on the boss, they picketed outside headquarters, built a petition, demonstrated in the workplace and much more. I got to join several of their job actions in Washington, D.C. and was inspired by their solidarity. They work for the entire labor movement and yet were not afraid to hold the house of labor to account.
Continue reading “Newsletter: AI in the Senate, Scholastic and others get new deals”