Author: The NewsGuild-CWA

Members of the CommonWealth Beacon Guild are thrilled that MassINC, the nonprofit that publishes CommonWealth Beacon, announced that it has officially awarded the union voluntary recognition. 

Management informed the Guild on Friday morning following a vote by MassINC’s Board of Directors. All parties involved can now move forward to bargaining over a fair contract in a spirit of collaboration and good faith. 

“This is the exact outcome for which we were hoping,” said Chris Lisinski, a senior reporter at CommonWealth Beacon. “We’re honored that MassINC recognizes the hard work of our newsroom and our desire to collectively bargain to make it an even better place, both for ourselves and for all future employees.” 

The NewsGuild-CWA today joined an emergency petition to the Federal Communications Commission demanding a freeze to a recent illegal order that would lead to further media consolidation.

Under legislation approved by Congress over 20 years ago, television station owners are currently prohibited from reaching over 39% of the U.S. national audience. When the FCC repealed that rule on October 1, it violated the law and that Congressional mandate. 

The FCC’s recent order would effectively allow conglomerates and even monopolies to dominate the broadcast landscape. The petition filed by The NewsGuild-CWA and others notifies the FCC of a forthcoming legal challenge to the repeal. 

“Consolidation is the main reason we have lost tens of thousands of journalism jobs in the past two decades,” said NewsGuild-CWA President Jon Schleuss. “Media workers and the public lose out when news organizations merge into conglomerates. The FCC’s disregard for the law will inevitably lead to more job losses, less informed local communities and increased costs for every American.”

Close to 30 Guild leaders got together this past weekend for the New Local Officers Seminar (NLOS), which hadn’t been held since 2019. The seminar was created in 1982 to train local officers recently elected to their positions. 

Over four days, participants learned and shared their experiences on leadership, organizing, bargaining, representation and communications. They dove into the role of local leaders, discussed burnout and learned more about the Guild’s Learn, Do, Teach framework to build capacity. The seminar covered the role of stewards, contract and rights enforcement and an overview of bargaining processes. Attendees also joined sessions on how to build an organizing structure and union communications.

Unionized workers of The Lever have ratified their first collective bargaining agreement since affiliating with the Denver Newspaper Guild-CWA, Local 37074. The agreement covers eight workers and strengthens protections from the previous contract, ratified when The Lever Union was an independent union. That includes a shorter probationary period for new employees; more robust healthcare coverage, including full dental and vision coverage; expanded severance; and a CBA signing bonus. It follows six months of organizing and negotiations.

“This deal is a testament to the hard work of our members, and we’re thrilled to have reached a deal for an even stronger contract with The Lever’s management,” said Natalie Bettendorf, Lever podcast producer and member of the union’s bargaining committee.

PITTSBURGH – Today, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s appeal of a ruling requiring the company to pay back its workers—members of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh (TNG-CWA Local 38061)—for the cuts to pay, illegally implemented increases in health care costs, and other unilateral changes to their working conditions.

Millions of dollars are owed to current and former PG employees. And the PG has no further venue for appeal.

“I’ve actually lost count of the number of agencies, judges, courts, and other authorities that have told the Blocks that the workers were right and the multi-millionaires were wrong. Our members were the first to tell them—more than nine years ago now,” said Jon Schleuss, President of The NewsGuild-CWA. “It’s staggering to think how much money and time the company wasted on losing when that could have been spent on dignified working conditions and improving the caliber of local journalism. The Block family’s efforts to delay accountability are finished. We look forward to seeing justice served so that our award-winning journalists can continue to focus on holding power to account.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom just signed a bill into law that will create tax credits to support journalism jobs in the state. Newsom supported the Community NEWS Act after local and international outreach from the Guild and a coalition led by Rebuild Local News.  

Local Guild leaders pressed Newsom to sign the legislation earlier this month. 

The law creates job retention credits of up to $20,000 each year for every employed journalist and creates a $15,000 credit for every new journalist hired. Part-time journalist positions are supported with $7,500 credits.

Contact information: indianalocalnewsguild@gmail.com

INDIANAPOLIS, IN — We, the workers at Mirror Indy, FPI News and Free Press Indiana, are proud to announce that we are forming a union: the Indiana Local News Guild. 

A supermajority of our colleagues have signed cards authorizing union representation by The NewsGuild, a sector of Communications Workers of America.

We have asked leadership to voluntarily recognize the union, citing overwhelming support among staff.

Our union campaign comes as our organization expands and we want to ensure all employees have a seat at the table. By unionizing, we want to ensure that we can keep our benefits — including paid parental leave, a hybrid work schedule and affordable healthcare. We also want to make sure workload expectations remain clear and for workplace policies to be equitably applied. 

Nominating Conference: January 9, 2027, on Zoom
Sector Conference: August 13-14, 2027, in Chicago, IL

The Nominating Conference of The NewsGuild-CWA will be held at 12 p.m. ET / 9 a.m. PT on Saturday, January 9, 2027. This is a virtual conference that will be conducted on Zoom. An in-person Sector Conference will be conducted August 13-14, 2027, in Chicago, IL immediately preceding the 2027 CWA Convention, (August 16-18).

On Friday, President Trump said he would ban CNN, MS Now and Politico from accessing the White House because of coverage he disliked. The following day journalists and media workers from those news organizations were barred by security from entering the grounds.

On Saturday the Politico and E&E News (PEN) Guild alongside their local, the Washington-Baltimore News Guild, released a statement saying, “This morning, Secret Service barred our own PEN Guild member Cheyenne Haslett from the White House simply for doing her job.

“Press access cannot be weaponized against journalists for their reporting,” they said. “An attack on one outlet’s ability to cover the White House is an attack on a free press for all of us. We stand with our members and every journalist targeted for doing their job.”

Last week, McClatchy laid off 30% of its unionized workers. Over 90 unionized journalists and media workers across 17 publications lost their jobs.

Workers at some of the affected outlets are raising money to support their laid-off colleagues. These fundraisers are linked below.