Category: News

TUCSON, Ariz. – Journalists at the Arizona Daily Star announced Thursday, Oct. 15, their intention to form a union with The NewsGuild-CWA and are calling on USA TODAY Co. to voluntarily recognize their union.

The announcement follows USA TODAY Co.’s September 2026 acquisition of the Arizona Daily Star from Lee Enterprises, ending the companies’ longstanding joint operating agreement. 

As the newspaper begins a new chapter under USA TODAY Co.’s ownership, the Star’s reporters, photographers and copy editors are calling on their new parent company to demonstrate its stated commitment to local journalism by respecting employees’ collective voice and voluntarily recognizing their union.

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 When the FCC repealed that rule on October 1, it violated the law and that Congressional mandate.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.”

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s former owners hit a dead end and must pay back millions to journalists. We won at the Supreme Court. 

Our union hasn’t been able to say those words very much over our 93-year history. 

But we’re saying them this week after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up management’s appeal of our victory at the appellate court. 

This whole saga has been going on for years, and so I wrote up a “mini” timeline:

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.”

To our readers—

We’re happy to share some good news: after a series of bargaining meetings concluding in September, the Current Affairs staff union has ratified and signed a new contract with the magazine, covering the next two years. 

We’re represented by the Chicago News Guild, Local 34071, an affiliate of the The NewsGuild-Communications Workers of America (TNG-CWA), and this contract gives Current Affairs workers a number of important protections and benefits. We’re proud of what we were able to secure through collective bargaining, and hope this contract will become a useful standard for workers at other media organizations who are considering unionization. 

Among the major provisions of the new contract are:

• A strong anti-AI policy, prohibiting the use of generative AI to write articles or create art for the magazine. 
• Ownership of our intellectual property, meaning that workers retain the copyright to the writing and art they create. 
• Three weeks days of paid time off (PTO).
• Unlimited sick days, so workers can seek medical care without worrying about counting their leave. 
• 10 weeks of fully paid parental leave.
• “Just cause” employment protections, giving workers greater job security. 
• A cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to wages, helping ensure that pay keeps pace with rising inflation.
• A worker representative on the Current Affairs board of directors.

Contact: dhnewsguild@gmail.com

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL – On Thursday, Oct. 1, Daily Herald journalists elected to form the Daily Herald News Guild by an overwhelming vote of 15-0.

Authorized observers from the union and management witnessed the counting of ballots unsealed at the offices of the National Labor Relations Board at the Dirksen Federal Building in downtown Chicago.

The secret ballot election was conducted via U.S. mail after newspaper owner Alden Global Capital/Tribune Publishing refused to voluntarily recognize the union. All 20 union eligible journalists had signed cards in support of organizing in late August.

The Guild will officially be certified within a week of the vote tally.

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.