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Last week workers at Scholastic ratified a new contract that includes raises of 4.75%, 3.5% and 3.5% over three years. The new salary floor starts at $65,000 a year, mirroring wins at the New York Times, Insider and Conde Nast. Workers also won a $3,250 ratification bonus, added health and safety provision, a transparent and fair hybrid work agreement and they continued to fight off a management’s rights clause. I got to join the Scholastic rally during their one-day strike last month and started tearing up talking about how proud I am to be part of a union with folks who help young kids explore new worlds through reading. (Speaking as this kid who grew up in rural Arkansas.) Scholastic members are amazing!
Workers at the AFL-CIO also ratified a successor contract this weekend. The new contract includes raises of 13.25% over four years. Recent previous agreements only won signing bonuses, with no percent increase to staffers bottom lines. The raises only happened because workers put pressure on the boss, in this case the leaders of the AFL-CIO. They marched on the boss, they picketed outside headquarters, built a petition, demonstrated in the workplace and much more. I got to join several of their job actions in Washington, D.C. and was inspired by their solidarity. They work for the entire labor movement and yet were not afraid to hold the house of labor to account.
Other contracts that recently just got wrapped up: Colorado Jobs With Justice, the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, the National Abortion Federation, Colorado Wins, the Kingston Whig-Standard and Clean Water Action Minnesota. That’s all just been in the last week or so! Congrats to our members for winning strong agreements!
Last week across the U.S. Condé Nast members walked out in protest of proposed layoffs by the company. “While management hides in London, we’re here in the states showing solidarity with our colleagues,” workers wrote online.
Strikers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette aren’t reducing the pressure on management after 13 months on strike, leafleting the Cultural District in Pittsburgh last week. That follows hiring a plane to tell John Block, one of the owners, to settle strike at the Harvard-Yale football game the Blocks like to attend. Please keep them in your thoughts and donate to support them this holiday season.
Workers at the hedge fund-owned Southern California News Group launched a GoFundMe to raise money for a potential strike at the newsroom with about a dozen titles in L.A. and Orange counties. Already more than $4,500 has been raised to support workers if they go on strike. “Many of our members have gone years, some up to two decades, without raises,” workers wrote online. “By dragging its feet, the company has been keeping wages low for many, while the cost of living continues to skyrocket.”
Guild members continue to take collective action to fight against management’s poor decisions, with 33 Guild workplaces walking out for half day or more this year so far. That’s likely not ever happened in our union’s 90-year history.
And we continue the unprecedented rate of organizing, with more than 1,200 workers joining the Guild so far this year.
Workers from six organizations unionized last month. Workers at Science News, Everyone Votes, Wisconsin Watch, Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, Education Week and Natural Resources Defense Council all unionized with different Guild locals. That’s a staggering 574 workers joining from those six organizations in one month alone. We’ve been able to increase our organizing capacity by supporting and building up member organizers, folks who have likely gone through a union campaign themselves and then take those skills, learn from others, and help more workers unionize. It’s a great model.
On Friday The NewsGuild-CWA Executive Council reiterated its call for journalists to be protected covering the Israel-Hamas war. We are making a $10,000 donation to the International Federation of Journalists Safety Fund, which will go toward concrete assistance to journalists struggling to report under unimaginable conditions. This fund provides journalists reporting from Gaza everything from first aid kits and battery packs to shelter and personal safety gear. We encourage members who are able to add to The NewsGuild-CWA’s contribution. You can do so here.
Last Wednesday U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer invited me to speak on a panel about artificial intelligence and its impact on the news industry, copyright, explainability and transparency. There were 18 other panelists from other unions, advocacy organizations and software companies. I pressed hard for the need for more journalists in this moment when misinformation and disinformation is rapidly spreading across the globe. The U.S. has lost more than 30,000 journalists in the last decade and that’s putting our democracy at risk. That’s why we’ve supported legislation that would provide a tax credit to newsrooms hiring and retaining local journalists and we’ve fought to improve legislation to support workers instead of just hedge funds.
Sports Illustrated got outed for using AI to fabricate stories last week, which I mentioned in my testimony. Workers online said that “these practices violate everything we believe in about journalism” and “we deplore being associated with something so disrespectful to our readers.” Sports Illustrated follows Gannett, which used a third-party vendor to post AI-generated stories bylined by fake people.
Tomorrow we’ll have the fourth module of our online steward training for members, starting for West Coast members at 6 p.m. PT. Register here and see more events on our calendar.
In solidarity,
Jon