Author: Jon Schleuss

Happy Friday! This month workers from two publishing houses organized with our union, bringing 730 new members into our family in just two election-count days! And since then, two more newsrooms have unionized with us!

Workers at Hachette Book Group and the University of Chicago Press voted to join our union on July 7 and 8, respectively. Hachette joined the Washington-Baltimore News Guild (WBNG) and University of Chicago Press joined the Chicago News Guild. 

I called workers at both publishers after their wins to ask: why did y’all unionize and why do it now?

Contact: themainemonitorunion@gmail.com

The staff of The Maine Monitor announced the formation of The Maine Monitor Union, joining The News Guild of Maine, Local 31128 of The NewsGuild-Communications Workers of America. Management agreed to voluntarily recognize the workers’ union shortly after they went public.

Workers launched with overwhelming support and are unionizing to better fulfill The Monitor’s mission to deliver high-quality, nonpartisan investigative and explanatory journalism by ensuring equitable employment terms that attract and retain top talent.

“Our union will be a positive step forward for both union members and the overall organization,” Rose Lundy, senior reporter at The Monitor, said. “The Maine Monitor Union will strengthen our newsroom, make The Monitor more attractive to talented candidates and will give staff the ability to speak with one voice.”

On Wednesday June 24 staff at High Country News (“HCN”) based in Colorado ratified their first collective bargaining agreement after unionizing in early 2024. The agreement covers 13 workers including writers, editors, photographers, customer service specialists, membership development managers, finance and payroll employees and more. 

It’s been a minute since my last newsletter because we’re down a comms coordinator (scroll to apply!) and I’ve also been traveling the world for our union. More on those trips at the bottom because there’s more interesting member news up top. Happy Friday! I hope you’re about to have a good restful weekend. 

And, if you’re thinking, “Jon this is a lot to read!” I bolded all the important stuff! You can also just look at the pictures. Let’s dive in. 

Last week all seven journalists at the Centre Daily Times in State College, Pa. asked local management to voluntarily recognize their union after McClatchy, the newspaper’s owner, began placing journalists’ bylines on stories written by artificial intelligence.

McClatchy agreed to have an independent party review the union cards signed by workers and compare that to staff lists. Six McClatchy newsrooms have unionized in as many years and each one was voluntarily recognized by the company. 

I’m traveling to Ottawa this week to attend the CWA Canada National Representative Council meeting. As The NewsGuild-CWA president, I’m a member of the council and am excited to hear from local leaders across Canada on the issues they’re facing and solutions they’re coming up with together. There will also be elections for several CWA Canada officer positions, including the treasurer and secretary. 

ProPublica workers voted 92% to authorize a strike if management does not agree to a fair contract that includes job security protections, ethical guardrails around the use of AI and wage increases to keep up with the rising cost of living. 

Our members at The New York Times Guild are currently bargaining their next collective agreement. What happens in these negotiations will impact the rest of the news industry. 

On Wednesday, hundreds of workers at the Times, represented by The NewsGuild of New York, took part in an action flooding management’s inbox with emails outlining five major priorities in their contract fight. A big priority on that list: artificial intelligence, which is a critical issue in newsrooms right now, from ProPublica to the 50 unionized newsrooms at Gannett, now known as USA Today Co. 

Our detained member’s son was at the State of the Union address in Washington, D.C. last night. Rep. Ilhan Omar from Minnesota invited Gerardo Orozco Guzman, the son of Eustaquio “Paco” Orozco Verdusco, our member who was detained by U.S. immigration officers in January. Paco’s family is raising money to support the legal fees, daily expenses, support for his family to travel to visit him in detention in New Mexico and ongoing care for the family. You can support Paco and his family by donating here.