Journalists across 11 Southern California newsrooms have voted to ratify a contract proposal after authorizing a strike.
NATIONAL — The Southern California News Group Guild announced today its members have voted to approve their first contract, with 93% voting in favor of ratification. The agreement comes on the heels of the Guild’s strike authorization vote in September.
The SCNG Guild, a unit of Media Guild of the West, represents more than 120 journalists across 11 newsrooms in the region, including the Orange County Register, the L.A. Daily News, the Long Beach Press-Telegram and others.
Some of the gains in the contract include:
- No less than a 6% raise over two years for all members. Some members with many years of experience who have been horribly underpaid will see raises of over 48%. The average raise over the next two years is 12%.
- Protections, such as a procedure for layoffs in inverse order of seniority. At-will employment is eliminated by new just cause protections, ensuring discipline is fair and transparent.
- Guardrails around management performing Guild work, the use of AI, freelance contracting, and involuntary changes in beat assignments for reporters.
“This contract would not have been possible without the strength and unity of our members, who after years of facing stagnant wages came together to demand better from our newsroom owners,” said Sean Emery, an SCNG reporter and Guild Unit Chair. “For the first time in many, many years our members will see much needed raises, particularly those who have struggled to get by on the lowest end of the pay scale. We have the power of our members to thank for this significant step forward.”
The ratification vote followed two years of negotiations and the overwhelming strike authorization vote in September, in which over 94% of members voted in favor of a strike.
“The gains in this contract will be life changing to Guild members, especially those at the bottom of the pay scale. Some of those people are veteran colleagues who have not received a raise in over a decade. The other new members, both current and future ones, will get to start their careers with a bit of a higher leg up to contribute to a profession in dire need of committed journalists. This commitment to them all is a step in the right direction in the future of journalism,” said Charlie Vargas, reporter and member of the Guild’s contract actions team.
SCNG is part of MediaNews Group, which is owned by Alden Global Capital, known as the “destroyer of newspapers.” Alden Global Capital owns more than 200 daily newspapers, and their business strategy is simple: aggressively cut costs and reduce staff to extract as much profit from its newspapers as possible.
Alden Global Capital has more recently taken this strategy into the manufactured housing sector (mobile home communities). In the last four years, Homes of America, an affiliate of Alden Global Capital, has spent more than $275 million to acquire more than 10,000 manufactured housing lots, increasing rents in several lots by between 50-100%, according to a report by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project.
“This is a hard-fought first step in a continuing process of pressuring the company to do the moral thing,” said Mindy Schauer, a photojournalist and member of the bargaining committee. “We will keep fighting for what our hard-working employees deserve.”
SCNG journalists voted to unionize in June 2021, joining Media Guild of the West, the Los Angeles-based local of The NewsGuild-CWA that represents journalists in Southern California, Arizona and Texas.
SCNG appealed the results of that vote to the National Labor Relations Board, and the board upheld the union’s certification in December 2021, finding no merit to the company’s challenge.
“This is a first step in repairing some of the damage that Wall Street has done to local journalism and to Main Street here in Southern California,” said Matt Pearce, president of Media Guild of the West. “These journalists stood up, demanded what was fair, and now the Southern California News Group is set to add at least $700,000 of new investment into their journalism serving our communities at a time when many of our other local newsrooms have been making cutbacks.”
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The Media Guild of the West, TNG-CWA Local 39213, represents more than 800 workers in California, Arizona and Texas, including at the Los Angeles Times and the Arizona Republic. The NewsGuild-CWA represents more than 27,000 journalists and other news industry employees in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico.
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