Author: NewsGuild of New York

NEW YORK – Journalists at New York’s Hometown Newspaper, the Daily News, walked out Thursday — the first walkout since the end of their historic strike in 1991 — fed up with chronic cuts ordered by the paper’s owner, the ‘destroyer of newspapers’ Alden Global Capital. 

“Alden wants to act as if we are not being chiseled,” said union steward Michael Gartland, an award-winning reporter who’s covered three NYC mayors. “We’re not going to engage in that intellectual dishonesty. In reality, we’re being crushed for cash. As a result, staff is diminished, which means our ability to cover the city is diminished. We believe this is bad for New York.”

Continue reading “New York Daily News journalists walk off the job in one-day protest over hedge fund owners’ slashing of resources”

NEW YORK – Unionized editorial staff at Forbes are walking off the job through Monday in protest of the business magazine’s attempts to prevent union members from exercising their rights as well as slow-walking contract negotiations. 

This the first walkout for the Forbes Union, and the first known work stoppage in the magazine’s 106-year history. It occurs during the production of its February/March print issue. 

Continue reading “Forbes workers go on three-day strike”

Outraged over the unlawful handling of layoff negotiations and bad-faith bargaining, unionized staff at many of the top Condé Nast brands have walked off the job for one day and will picket outside One World Trade Center in New York City today.

SUPPORT THE WORKERS – Join the digital picket line and do not engage with Allure, Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit, Condé Nast Traveler, Epicurious, Glamour, GQ, Self, Teen Vogue, Them, Vanity Fair, or Vogue content on January 23, 2024.

TAKE ACTION – Tell CEO Roger Lynch that enough is enough by sending a letter with a clear message: bargain in good faith and stop the layoffs!

HARDSHIP FUND – If Condé decides to dock our pay for the day of the walkout, we want to make sure union members who would experience financial hardship from the loss are covered. Please donate to the walkout fund!

SPREAD THE WORD – Follow and repost to support workers on Instagram and Twitter!

Continue reading “Condé Nast workers at a dozen publications walk out”

Contact: Jen Sheehan, jen@nyguid.org, 610-573-0740

NEW YORK – Unionized editorial workers at Law360  — who have had enough of parent company LexisNexis execs’ illegal tactics and stalling at the bargaining table — will hold a one-day strike on Wednesday, highlighted by a mid-afternoon rally and a day-long picket line outside corporate headquarters in New York City.

Readers of the legal news service are urged not to cross the digital picket line Wednesday.  

The work stoppage comes after The NewsGuild of New York filed an unfair labor practice charge on behalf of Law360 Union against LexisNexis on Tuesday. The basis of the charge is a Nov. 16 bargaining session in which LexisNexis representatives threatened Guild members with less favorable terms the longer negotiations continue. Regressive bargaining is a form of bad faith bargaining, in which one side moves backwards, offering less on a proposal than they had previously offered. 

Continue reading “Law360 workers walk off the job in one-day action protesting management’s threats, unlawful conduct at the bargaining table”

As the company continues damage control over siloing titles at its book fairs focused on race and LGBTQ+ themes, it is also fighting its workers on living wages.

NEW YORK – Unionized workers at Scholastic – the children’s publishing powerhouse – are walking out in protest of the billion-dollar company’s refusal to pay its workers fair wages, specifically its rejection of the Scholastic Union’s proposal for annual raises.  

Members of Scholastic Union will not report to work Wednesday, Nov. 1 as part of the one-day stoppage and will instead rally via Zoom and then hold an in-person protest and picket starting at 1 p.m. outside Scholastic’s corporate headquarters at 130 Mercer St., New York City.

“What we are asking for, from a billion dollar company, is enough to live on as employees,” said Sandra Roldan, a member of the Scholastic Union. “We have members who have had to use their retirement savings to keep up with the inflationary costs and rent increases since the pandemic. That’s unacceptable for a company who professes to be dedicated to the ‘highest quality of life in community and nation.’”

Flagrantly hypocritical, Scholastic wants the public to believe that it values “the worth and dignity of each individual,” as its corporate credo says but yet it refuses to pay living wages and tramples on the legal rights of its unionized employees. 

All this comes as Scholastic attempts to mitigate controversy over its program to silo titles focused on race and LGBTQ+ themes at some book fairs. After intense backlash from the public, authors and illustrators, Scholastic halted the censorship.  

The Scholastic Union was formed in 1937 to represent employees at the children’s publishing powerhouse. The 82 members of the Scholastic Union are represented by The NewsGuild of New York. 

The union’s last collective bargaining contract with Scholastic Inc. expired in May 2022. Employees have been bargaining with the company since last October.

“We see straight through the hypocrisy of Scholastic and are standing together today to make this company better,” said Susan DeCarava, president of the NewsGuild of New York. “Our members are dedicated to the values that their work for Scholastic represents. We think the company should, at both the bargaining table and at book fairs, represent those values too.”

The afternoon work stoppage comes in response to ongoing threats of discipline by management over The Times’ unlawful return-to-office edict.

NEW YORK – The Times Tech Guild – the largest union of tech workers with collective bargaining rights in the country – will walk out this afternoon in protest of the New York Times’ flagrant disregard for their rights as union members. Times management has continually attempted to coerce members to comply with its unlawful return-to-office policy.

The nearly 700-member union – which includes software engineers, data analysts, project managers, product managers, and designers at the New York Times – will begin their walkout at 1 p.m. They will exit the building at 40th Street (between Seventh and Eighth avenues) and hold a rally, followed by an afternoon of picketing around The Times building. Some members will be in Halloween costumes, to not only mark the upcoming holiday but to demonstrate that they aren’t “scared” of Times management’s anti-union tactics.

Workers who are remote will sign off at 1 p.m. and participate in a digital rally and picket via Zoom.

The Tech Guild, which won its union election by a landslide in March 2022, is negotiating its first contract. The NewsGuild of New York, the labor union that represents the Tech Guild, filed an unfair labor practice charge in September 2022 about Times’ management’s edict to return to the office. In August, Region 2 of the National Labor Relations Board found merit to the charge and supported the Guild’s position – that return-to-office is a mandatory subject of bargaining.

Despite that, Times’ management continues to pressure Tech Guild workers to come into the office, including threats that failing to work in-person will impact performance evaluations that determine raises and bonuses. It’s one reason why the Tech Guild is fighting so hard for “just cause” in their contract as a fair standard that management must adhere to when disciplining or firing an employee.

“The Times is now not only refusing to recognize our rights to bargain on return to office but is now going a step further and using it as a tactic to intimidate us,” said Kathy Zhang, unit chair for the Tech Guild. “This afternoon’s work stoppage is to send The Times’ senior leadership a strong, unmistakable message: We will not stand by and allow you to trample on our rights.”

Times management has fought the Tech Guild every step of the way since they first announced their intention to be a union in 2021. It’s a pattern of behavior by the company that’s one of the reasons why the Tech Guild is bringing attention to their contract fight to the public with their walkout.

“Today’s rally is about RESPECT for the workers who help make the New York Times the media powerhouse that it is,” said Susan DeCarava, president of The NewsGuild of NY. “We are fighting for a fair contract that protects our Tech Guild members from arbitrary and unlawful work rules. We much prefer to work with a partner across the table in good faith, but that can’t happen until Times management stops violating our members’ rights and labor law.”

Members of the Reviewed Union, which represents workers at Gannett’s flagship consumer review site, will walk off the job on Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days event today in protest of management’s failure to schedule bargaining dates and revocation of overtime pay from hourly employees after the announcement of the union last year. The Reviewed Union is one of more than 50 Gannett bargaining units represented by The NewsGuild-CWA.

The more than 40 writers, editors, art, community, lab, and operations team members at the Gannett-owned e-commerce and product review outlet will walk out during the shopping holiday unless bargaining dates are provided and overtime pay restored. Workers are calling on shoppers to respect the “Click-it Picket Line” by refusing to interact with any of Reviewed’s Prime Day content during the walkout.

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Media Contact: Addy Baird, addy@nyguild.org, 801-368-5867

Fifteen years after ProPublica published its first investigation, employees of the award-winning, nonprofit investigative newsroom announced today that they were forming a union, the ProPublica Guild. The announcement comes as a slew of newsrooms have organized and, increasingly, won major material gains for members.

The ProPublica Guild announced their wall-to-wall unit with 90% support across the business and editorial sides of the newsroom. On Wednesday, members requested swift recognition of the ProPublica Guild from ProPublica President Robin Sparkman, Editor-in-Chief Stephen Engelberg and members of the masthead. The ProPublica Guild will be represented by The New York NewsGuild, CWA Local 31003.

Continue reading “ProPublica workers form a union and join the Guild”