Morning Call journalists walk out

Unionized journalists at the Morning Call in Allentown, PA, staged a one-day work stoppage on May 13 to send a message to Tribune Publishing and Alden Global Capital: It’s time for them to stop devaluing the journalists’ work.

Reporters, content editors and photographers at The Morning Call are expected to pay more each year out of their own pockets to do their jobs serving the Lehigh Valley, they said. Pay is deplorably low – and in many cases discriminatory – and the paper’s management has asserted production requirements without bargaining. The Guild has filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge.

In addition to low wages across the board, a pay study published earlier this year by Tribune Publishing Guild members showed these issues are systemic across the company.

At The Morning Call:

  • Women are paid 23% less on average than men, averaging a little more than $45,000 while men earn an average of $57,123.
  • There are no female senior journalists.
  • Allentown is 54% Hispanic and only 31% white. Yet there is just one journalist of color at the paper, a supervisor.

The Morning Call journalists joined those at several other publications who have withheld their labor in recent months to oppose management contract proposals, including at the Miami Herald, Ziff Davis, Buzzfeed News and Condé Nast.

Morning Call Guild members invited supporters to join them at a noon rally at Allentown’s Arts Park, 24-32 N 5th St. The rally was live-streamed on Twitter and Facebook.