Bargaining | The NewsGuild

Workers at Forward win contract

Workers at Forward, a source for news, opinion and culture “through a Jewish lens,” won a new contract after 14 months of bargaining.

Boundless Greed: Alden walks away from bills, gathers wealth and guts news organizations

The founders of Alden Global Capital — the infamous ‘destroyer of newspapers’ — are walking away from unpaid bills as they amass ever more personal wealth (and continue to gut news organizations)

Editor’s Note: The article first appeared on the website Save Local News on Sept. 23.

Randall Smith, cofounder of the hedge fund Alden Global Capital, is infamous for two things: gutting local newspapers and a voracious acquisition of pricey real estate.

San Francisco Chronicle Guild members fight management antics

Members of the San Francisco Chronicle Guild have been busy fighting management antics this month while bargaining for a new contract.

They found a nice new spot for their contractually guaranteed Guild bulletin board after the company remodeled the newsroom, but in mid-September management moved the board to a less visible location.

Management also removed Chronicle Guild flags, which staffers had planted with the office’s fake greenery.

Verso Guild members ratify first contract

Verso Books’ U.S. staffers ratified their first contract on Wednesday, 16 months after they began negotiating. The decision was unanimous, with all 14 members voting in favor.

That’s a marked turnaround from August, when workers rejected management’s proposed contract by a vote of 14-1.

Newsletter: Condé workers make history

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Condé Nast workers made history on Friday: More than 500 staffers at a dozen publications won voluntary recognition of Condé Nast Union. All of Condé Nast publications are now union!

The newly recognized union covers full- and part-time editorial, video and production workers at Allure, Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit, Condé Nast Traveler, Epicurious, Glamour, GQ, Self, Teen Vogue, them., Vanity Fair and Vogue, as well as Condé Nast Entertainment. It also includes more than 100 subcontracted employees who work for a third-party staffing agency.

IndyStar journalists take their fight downtown

This is a lightly edited version of a post that appeared on the website of the Indianapolis NewsGuild on Sept. 1, 2022.

More than 30 red-T-shirt-clad IndyStar journalists and a dozen allies took a coordinated lunch break to demand a fair contract on Sept. 1, exactly two years after the expiration date of their collective bargaining agreement. (The agreement remains in effect until a new contract is negotiated.)

The journalists marched around Monument Circle in downtown Indianapolis, chanting, “Chop from the top, not the newsroom.”

Newsletter: NYT performance reviews show bias; Guild loses a good soul

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An analysis by members of the New York Times Guild published last week reveals stunning racial disparities in performance evaluations of Guild-represented employees by management at the New York Times.

The study found that being Hispanic reduced the odds of receiving a high score by about 60%, being Black cut the chances of high scores by nearly 50%, and being Asian lowered the odds of a high score by about 35%. In 2020, not a single Black employee received the highest rating, while white employees accounted for more than 90 percent of the roughly 50 people who received the top score.