American Rescue Plan includes important health care provisions

The recently-enacted American Rescue Plan includes several elements of special interest to workers and their unions, NewsGuild Executive Vice President Marian Needham reports.

One little noticed benefit is a provision that grants a 100% subsidy for six months of health care premiums for COBRA-eligible people who lose their jobs or eligibility for employer coverage for the period from April 1 to Sept. 30, 2021.

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Staff says hedge fund Alden refused to let paper publish diversity announcement for readers

After George Floyd’s killing and the national reckoning on race that followed, journalists at the Denver Post have been meeting regularly to look deeply into the newspaper’s role in perpetuating “systems of racism and inequality and to seek solutions.”

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Newsletter: Strike votes, the fight for pro-journalism owners and more organizing!

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NewsGuild members at The New Yorker, Pitchfork, and Ars Technica voted — with 98 percent support — to approve a strike if negotiations with management of their publications and their parent company, Condé Nast, break down further. The vote came on March 26 after years of contentious negotiations for first contracts at each outlet.

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Staffers at Planned Parenthood PA Advocates knew a thing or two about organizing before they formed a union. Now they’re taking the next step.

Update: PPPA Union announced April 14, 2021, that the group has won voluntary recognition from the board of the nonprofit organization. They will be a unit of the NewsGuild of Greater Philadelphia.

When the staffers at Planned Parenthood PA Advocates announced March 23 they were forming a union, they already knew a thing or two about organizing: In December 2020 they forced the executive director of the organization to resign after charging her with being “fiscally irresponsible” and saying she used “racist, transphobic, classist language, and language which perpetuates stigma against abortion.”

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After years of stalled contract talks, workers at The New Yorker, Pitchfork and Ars Technica vote to authorize a strike

After two and a half years of unproductive contract talks, NewsGuild members at The New Yorker, Pitchfork, and Ars Technica announced Friday that they have voted — with 98 percent support — to approve a strike if negotiations with management of their publications and their parent company, Condé Nast, break down further.

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Alden is undermining a Baltimore philanthropist’s higher bid for Tribune Publishing

Tribune CEO Terry Jimenez was lone voice voting against Alden takeover

This article first appeared on the website of DFMworkers.org.

Alden Global Capital is aggressively undermining an effort by a Maryland hotel magnate to buy Tribune Publishing and possibly make its papers nonprofit charities, a new government filing reveals.

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Guild retains consultant in harassment probe

Recently we at the international NewsGuild-CWA retained an independent consultant to start a review with our membership at the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh to improve our culture and policies and make sure our union is safe for every member. 

In the coming weeks the consultant will speak with current and former members of the Pittsburgh local union and identify areas of improvement based on members’ feedback. We’ve been coordinating with members of the Human Rights Committee at the local for several months and I’m excited to see this new phase of work get started. 

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