Contact: wisconsinwatchunion@gmail.com
MILWAUKEE – Wisconsin Watch journalists, represented by Wisconsin Watch Union and Milwaukee NewsGuild Local 34051, have secured their first union contract, which includes meaningful gains in wages, job security and workplace protections.
Wisconsin Watch Union members this week voted unanimously to approve the contract.
After more than a year of bargaining, Wisconsin Watch Union members — based in both Milwaukee and Madison — have a contract with several key wins:
- Increased wages: Minimum salary guarantees and annual cost-of-living increases.
- Expanded job security: “Just cause” protections, layoff restrictions and eight weeks of severance pay with extended benefits.
- Workplace protections: Remote work guarantee with protected flexible schedules.
- Leave assurances: Meaningful medical leave, parental leave, caregiver leave and bereavement leave, among others.
Wisconsin Watch’s newsroom is part of a growing number of journalists at nonprofit newsrooms across the country choosing to unionize to win rights like these, such as ProPublica, Spotlight PA, Texas Tribune, The Marshall Project and more.
“We did this together,” said Phoebe Petrovic, investigative reporter at Wisconsin Watch and an initial Wisconsin Watch Union organizer. “We’ll continue to do great journalism knowing our workplace is more structured, secure and protected.”
“This union has already provided me with tangible and obvious benefits, but one thing I didn’t anticipate is how much closer I would feel to my coworkers,” said Devin Blake, Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service criminal justice reporter and a bargaining committee member. “I have such a clearer sense of what matters to their lives and work.”
“I am proud of the contract Wisconsin Watch Union has won,” said Wisconsin Watch statehouse reporter Jack Kelly, who served on the union’s bargaining committee. “This deal will allow reporters in our newsrooms to continue to focus on serving their communities knowing they have greater security and stability.”
The three-year agreement was signed Friday, March 28, 2025.
###
ABOUT WISCONSIN WATCH UNION:
Wisconsin Watch Union is a bargaining unit of the Milwaukee NewsGuild Local 34051 of The NewsGuild-CWA, which represents more than 27,000 journalists, media workers, interpreters, non-profit workers and staff at other labor unions. The Guild is the largest union of journalists in North America, operating in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. The Guild is a sector of the Communications Workers of America, which represents employees in telecommunications, the airline industry, broadcast and cable television, health care, public service and education, law enforcement, manufacturing and other fields.