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500+ Condé Nast staffers win union recognition

Condé Nast workers scored a major victory on Friday, as more than 500 staffers at a dozen publications secured voluntary recognition of Condé Nast Union.

The new company-wide union win means that every Condé Nast publication is union. The Condé Nast 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.

Everett journalists vote unanimously: Union

The journalists of the Everett Herald voted unanimously on Thursday to form the Everett NewsGuild.

“Today the newsroom workers at @EverettHerald voted 19-0 to unionize. We will now have a true say in our working conditions,” they tweeted immediately after the vote count.

NewsGuild members protest Gannett CEO Mike Reed outside NYC conference

A contingent of NewsGuild of New York members protested Gannett CEO Mike Reed outside a Citi technology conference in New York City on Friday, blasting the nation’s biggest news chain for laying off more than 400 employees while spending lavishly on executive compensation and stock buybacks. All this, despite the fact that the company received $16 million in taxpayer subsidies from the Paycheck Protection Program.

At the end of the protest, Reed came outside to talk to the union members. He said he was committed to settling contracts with NewsGuild units by the end of the year and that workers can hold him to it.

“We intend to do just that,” said Adrian Szkolar, a producer for the Atlantic Digital Optimization Team and vice chair of the Atlantic DOT Guild. Core NewsGuild demands include strong salary minimums, increased staffing, and a real commitment to improve diversity, equity and inclusion.

15 NewsGuild local leaders implore Senators: Improve journalism bill to ensure that funds are spent on journalism

Fifteen NewsGuild local leaders called on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday to improve the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act to ensure that publishers spend the money they derive from the bill on journalism.

In a Sept. 7 letter, the NewsGuild local presidents and unit chairs pointed out that there is no such requirement in the legislation as currently drafted. The committee is set to mark up the bill on Thursday.

Let’s turn this into Labor Week!

I hope you had a great Labor/Labour Day!

I was in Toronto with members of CWA Canada and the Canadian Media Guild celebrating Labour Day, which falls on the same day in the U.S. and Canada.

It was a total blast to be back together outside with other workers after two-and-a-half years of the pandemic.

The Atlantic’s business and tech workers win union recognition

The Atlantic’s business and tech teams won formal recognition of their union on Friday, after a card count confirmed supermajority support. The workers announced their intent to unionize back in July with the New York NewsGuild, joining their editorial colleagues at The Atlantic, who unionized nearly a year earlier in June of 2021.

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.”

Journalists at Kentucky’s highest-circulation publication join organizing wave

Journalists of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Courier Journal announced on Tuesday that they have formed a union — The Courier Journal Guild. The new unit will include approximately 35 newsroom employees, from early career reporters to veteran journalists with decades of experience. They will be part of the Indianapolis NewsGuild Local 34070.

Bill McLeman, staffer who helped forge Guild merger with CWA, dies

Bill McLeman passed away on Aug. 18, 2022, after a brief, intense bout of pneumonia.

A gentle soul with a heart of gold, Bill was never known to raise his voice, according to his widow, Bridget. He started life with few assets and created a strong family that will treasure his memory. He was a beloved husband, father, grandfather, uncle and a friend, Bridget wrote on Facebook.

Bargaining bill for news companies still needs improvements

A revised version of the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act still needs significant improvement, NewsGuild-CWA President Jon Schleuss says.

The revised bill, introduced yesterday by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and a bipartisan group of senators, would give news companies the right to bargain collectively with Google and Facebook to recoup revenue the social media giants have diverted from news organizations.