Jon Schleuss | The NewsGuild

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.

Photo of the workers at the San Antonio Report wearing red shirts after going public with their union in January 2024

Workers at San Antonio Report walk off the job in protest of illegal layoff

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.

Litigation against journalists is settled

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.

You can read the terms of the settlement here.

NewsGuild-CWA renews call to protect journalists abroad and at home as Israel-Hamas War continues

On November 9, The NewsGuild-CWA condemned the killing of 39 journalists and media workers in the Israel-Hamas War. Since that time, roughly 20 more have been killed and many others have been injured, harassed and detained. As stated by the Committee to Protect Journalists, this has been the deadliest month for journalists since they started gathering data in 1992.

The nearly 60 known dead include 50 Palestinians, four Israelis and three Lebanese. Many currently reporting from Gaza have lost homes and family, and are reporting without regular access to phones, internet, shelter or power.