I’m just going to start with some very exciting news: last week our union hit a new record.
More workers have joined our union in 2021 than in any year in recent history. That number stands at more than 1,500 workers across 29 workplaces. It started with journalists at the Loveland Reporter-Herald in Colorado and includes Washington state McClatchy papers, Entertainment Weekly, the New York Daily News, MinnPost, the Kansas City Star, the Atlantic, the ACLU of Missouri and many, many others! See the full list here.
Journalists at Forbes won a stunning vote on Tuesday, helping us break our record. 90.5% voted in favor of unionizing, with 67 voting yes and just 7 voting no. The unit will encompass approximately 100 newsroom employees, including reporters, editors, designers, videographers and social media editors. They’re joining the NewsGuild of New York Local 31003. I’m so excited to welcome them into our union.
From 2018 through 2020 we averaged 1,411 workers joining our union. And 2019 was the previous record, with 1,499 workers joining our union. This new record is a testament to all the work everyone is doing across our union and has been decades in the making.
All of that organizing has created a bargaining challenge for us, but one we’re meeting. Last week the Executive Council’s Finance Committee approved supporting four additional staffers embedded in four different locals: NewsGuild of New York, News Media Guild, Washington-Baltimore News Guild and the Pacific Media Workers. That’s in addition to five other staffers embedded in locals and three additional organizers working in locals — all of which we at the international union are supporting.
This comes after a deep assessment of the situation by our staff and leaders across the union. I’m grateful to everyone stepping up to organize thousands of workers and fighting with them to get first contracts.
Clearly, we are helping put the movement into the labor movement.
And things are looking bright at the National Labor Relations Board. Next month the board will have a 3-2 majority of Democratic-appointed members. Two union lawyers were confirmed last week, including Gwynne Wilcox, who is the first Black woman to serve on the five-member board. Those appointments come after the confirmation of Jennifer Abruzzo as the general counsel of the NLRB earlier this month. I’ve worked with Jennifer when she was at CWA and she’s amazing. She’s trained our organizers on filing petitions and helped us navigate the complexities of labor law across regions around the U.S. Employers need to buckle in because with our organizing energy and an NLRB on our side, they’re in for a shock. Sorry, not sorry.
There’s a bill in Congress to help save local news. The “Local Journalism Sustainability Act” was introduced in the Senate on July 22. It would help provide tax credits to local news organizations to retain journalists. It would save jobs and protect our democracy.
Half of America’s journalism jobs have been wiped out in the last decade – losses that have accelerated during the pandemic – and the erosion of local news poses an existential threat to our democracy.
The Local Journalism Sustainability Act was introduced in the Senate by Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Ron Wyden (D-OR). Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ) and Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA) introduced a bipartisan version of the bill (H.R.3940) in the House.
A few days later, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer gave a boost to the plan in a clip posted on Twitter, “I am completely in favor of a tax credit for local news,” he said. “They’re vital to our community and under real hardship.” We’re working with coalition partners to get it enacted into law. But if your senator or representative is missing from the cosponsor list, give them a call today.
The NLRB has given the Idaho NewsGuild an important victory, ruling that McClatchy, which owns the Idaho Statesman, cannot impose pageview quotas on the paper’s journalists.
The July ruling was in response to an Unfair Labor Practice charge filed by union members, which alleged the company violated workers’ protections under federal labor law by unilaterally changing annual performance reviews.
This is another big win for journalists who won’t have to fear being penalized if they miss an arbitrary metric. As the Idaho NewsGuild said, “It means readers will get their information from journalists chasing news, not clicks.” It’s also another good example of the value of unionizing.
Members of the Buffalo Newspaper Guild reached a tentative agreement with management after waging an unrelenting fight for a good contract. They won support from readers, as well as from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Rep. Brian Higgins, 13 Erie County elected leaders, 7 state legislators, and local labor/community groups. They got billboard ads in Buffalo and outside the headquarters of Lee Enterprises, the paper’s owner, and waged a byline strike.
The tentative 3-year agreement provides general wage increases of 2%, 2% and 1% annually and provides additional “equity increases” of $1 per hour for the four lowest paid classifications in the unit. Signing bonuses of $1,000 will be paid to full-time employees; $500 to part-time employees. Employee premium sharing for medical coverage is capped at 9% of the premium and the union strengthened its jurisdiction over digital work products.
On the downside, up to 21 positions across 3 departments can be outsourced to Lee’s corporate facilities, but any affected employees will receive enhanced severance pay and extended medical insurance coverage. Under the TA, a defined benefit pension plan will be frozen and replaced by a 401(k) plan, to which the employer will contribute up to $200 monthly (no match required). All employees vested in the frozen pension plan will receive 8 additional years of service credit, which will yield a significant boost to pension future payouts.
Members will be voting on ratification soon.
Tomorrow is Black Women’s Equal Pay Day. Black women in the U.S. earn just 63 cents, on average, for every dollar earned by white men. To shine a light on this outrageous disparity, we will join thousands of people across the country to observe Black Women’s Equal Pay Day on Aug. 3, which symbolizes how long Black women must work to catch up to white men’s 2020 earnings. Please plan to participate in a Twitter storm from 2-3 p.m.
Two great training sessions are scheduled this month: Bargaining Training is set for 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. EDT on Saturday, Aug. 7. It will cover the stages of bargaining, creating campaigns to support bargaining, developing proposals and counterproposals and building presentation skills. Register here. Contract Campaign Training is set for 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. EDT on Saturday, Aug. 28. It will cover how to build powerful campaigns to win the contracts our members need. Register here.
Finally, there was a lot of other news of interest to Guild members in the last two weeks. Poynter wrote about how some news chains are selling to local owners, which is a welcomed move. The Nation had a fantastic piece about our union challenging the use of non-disclosure agreements by banning them in our contracts. Margaret Sullivan urged journalists to stop covering politics as usual when it is under direct attack. Marc Tracy at the New York Times wrote about the job cuts we’ve seen since Alden took over Tribune Publishing, including shuttering the Bowie Blade-News last week. And Julie K. Brown, the Miami Herald reporter who exposed Epstein’s crimes, revealed in her new book the challenges of working for a large news chain not willing to invest in investigative journalism—or help her adequately save for retirement.
In solidarity,
Jon Schleuss
President, NewsGuild-CWA
Photo at top: Members of SCNG Guild (Southern California News Group Guild) proudly display their sealed ballots before mailing them.