Yesterday morning, Vice Presidential Candidate JD Vance crossed our picket line at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which is America’s current longest-running strike.
Our members have bravely held the picket line for more than two years as the company repeatedly violates federal labor law and hurts journalists and the Pittsburgh community. Vance ran an op-ed in the Post-Gazette, published on Thursday morning, signaling his willingness to side with a company that’s attacked journalists and broken federal law. A person who crosses a picket line is a scab.
I’m traveling to Pittsburgh on Monday to be with our strikers as the National Labor Relations Board asks a federal judge to approve an injunction against the company for its long list of illegal activities.
But I want to hand it over to Natalie Duleba, a NewsGuild member and 2-year veteran of our ongoing strike in Pittsburgh.
Yesterday, the Republican vice presidential nominee crossed my and my union siblings’ picket line with an op-ed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
There’s never an excuse for crossing a picket line. And anybody who claims to fight for the working class and then scabs a picket line is lying.
I grew up in Ohio, and although I was not a resident when Vance ran for U.S. Senate, I can confidently say this isn’t the first time, nor will it be the last that he betrays workers.
Striking workers like me are still very much in this fight for dignified working conditions and affordable health care at the Post-Gazette. We’ve been on the front lines of that fight on strike since October 2022 and there’s just no way an editorial by a man who scorns hard-working Pittsburgers is going to stop us now.
The reality is that the National Labor Relations Board, which both the PG’s owners and their latest guest op-ed writer would like to abolish, is chronically underfunded. In fact, the agency that enforces what few legal protections we have as workers in this country has 60 percent of the staff now than it did 14 years ago.
An adequately funded NLRB would help us and others facing unfair labor practices in their workplaces. It would deter the kind of stall tactics employed by Post-Gazette owners that hurt me and other Pittsburghers who have to work for a living.
Just this week, the PG argued to a federal judge that labor law itself is unconstitutional. The PG wants this to be true, partly because it’s due in court on Monday for its many illegal behaviors.
Vance’s decision to publish an op-ed across a picket line is very much in line with the anti-union and anti-worker positions of the PG.
But while various PG execs and board members have been actively choosing to hurt me and you, my fellow strikers workers have continued their award-winning coverage of Pittsburgh while fighting for a better future. Nothing Vance has to say in the Post-Gazette or elsewhere will dissuade us from serving our community the best ways we know how.
Lastly, any donations you make to our strike fund directly helps me and strikers like me pay our bills and keep a roof over our heads. Solidarity is truly what keeps all of us going.
Late last week, journalists at the Austin American-Statesman won a tentative agreement on a first contract! The new deal still needs to be ratified by members and includes higher minimum salaries, wage increases, a health care premium freeze, job protections and more.
“We are thrilled to be able to turn the page on this part of our Guild history,” said Nicole Villalpando, chair of the Austin NewsGuild. “Our members worked incredibly hard to make this happen. We went without raises, picketed, social media shamed the company, went on strike with 100% participation twice, and phone zapped the CEO to make this happen.”
Journalists at the Statesman first launched their union effort as the Austin NewsGuild in December 2020, winning an election in February 2021. Workers withheld their labor in a Gannett-wide strike in June 2023 and struck again for four days in April around the solar eclipse.
Workers at The New Yorker magazine just won a second contract, after threatening to go on strike during The New Yorker Festival. Management finally began to make movement just a few days after a unanimous strike vote and a public support pledge.
“Our members’ unflagging solidarity and militancy—along with invaluable support from our colleagues outside the union—showed that we are organized, united, and committed to fighting for our rights,” said Hannah Aizenman, New Yorker Union Unit Chair. “We refused to give in to the company’s attempts to erode the progress we’ve made since unionizing in 2018, and we won a contract that continues to raise standards for workers at The New Yorker, at Condé Nast, and throughout the media industry.”
Our members won an increased salary floor, a 12% average raise over the life of the three-year deal, improved family leave and a whole lot more.
Journalists at Military.com unanimously won their union election last Thursday. They will join the Washington-Baltimore News Guild Local 32035, which also represents the recently unionized journalists at the Military Times.
Steven Beynon, a key member of the bargaining team and a reporter at Military.com, said the company has failed to pay their award-winning news team a fair wage for their aggressive accountability work.
“Rampant inflation has taken a significant toll. Our team has seen no salary adjustments or raises of consequence and pay is far below market value, amid record-breaking readership with a constant barrage of blockbuster reporting,” Beynon said.
“This work has a constant, measurable impact which service members, veterans and their families are entitled to. It must survive. We look forward to working with our corporate leadership to make sure this team stays together, is able to continue its prestigious work and is properly compensated.”
Racine, Wisconsin journalists won voluntary recognition while Lee Enterprises, their owner, laid off scores of journalists across the U.S. Lee voluntarily recognized the Racine NewsGuild as part of the Kenosha Newspaper Guild bargaining unit this month, less than three weeks after the Racine Journal Times newsroom announced its plan to unionize.
Yesterday there were more resignations at the Los Angeles Times as Robert Greene and Karin Klein announced their departures following editor Mariel Garza’s resignation over the owner’s decision not to endorse a candidate for the U.S. presidential election.
Sewell Chan covered the departure in the Columbia Journalism review. Chan and I used to work together and he was the Opinion Editor at the L.A. Times.
The Times endorsed the GOP nominee in every election from its founding in 1881 through Nixon’s reelection in 1972. The endorsement was seen as an embarrassment after the Watergate scandal, Chan wrote. And from 1976 through 2004 the Times didn’t endorse any presidential candidate.
That changed in 2008 when the Times endorsed Barack Obama, the first Democratic nominee to win the paper’s editorial support. The journalists in the newsroom did not participate in the endorsement process done by the opinion journalists in the editorial section, but all of the workers are members of the Guild.
Patrick Soon-Shiong went to X, formerly Twitter, to express his side, dunking on the staff and writing that “the Editorial Board was provided the opportunity to draft a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH candidate during their tenures at the White House, and how these policies affected the nation” and “instead of adopting this path as suggested, the Editorial Board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision.”
Elon Musk, who is friendly with Soon-Shiong—they are both South African–born billionaire entrepreneurs—replied to that post: “Makes sense.”
The Los Angeles Times Guild released a statement after many readers started to cancel their subscriptions to the paper.
We know many loyal readers are angry, upset or confused, and some are canceling their subscriptions. Before you hit the “cancel” button: That subscription underwrites the salaries of hundreds of journalists in our newsroom. Our member-journalists work every day to keep readers informed during these tumultuous times. A healthy democracy is an informed democracy.
We remain deeply concerned about The Times’ owner’s decision to block a planned endorsement, and his statement that unfairly shifts blame onto editorial board members. We are pressing for answers.
Meanwhile, our members continue doing their jobs: covering city hall, interviewing sources, investigating local corruption and putting out a newspaper every day. We are proud of our members as they do this essential work.
Last night I did an interview with union leaders on KKFI radio in Kansas City. I gave an overview picture of the state of the news industry. This week Northwestern University released its annual report of the state of local news, writing that “since 2005, more than 266,000 newspaper jobs have been lost in the U.S., a decline of 73%.”
“In raw numbers, the loss of jobs in newspapers is the single largest drop in all industries tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey.”
That’s terrible and caused by a number of factors: Big Tech, consolidation in the industry and the financialization of the news (i.e. Alden Global Capital and other hedge funds destroying local newsrooms).
But we are fighting back like never before in our union’s 91-year history, as I highlight more below.
Last week I joined the National Press Club for their Labor Leaders Panel, where I answered questions alongside National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer A. Abruzzo. I particularly highlighted what Natalie did above: the need to double the NLRB’s funding to meet the demands of the labor movement and the needs of Guild members. Then, we should increase penalties for bosses breaking the law: fines and potential jail time for employers.
Ahead of the panel, the NLRB announced that union petitions are surging, doubling since 2021 and up nearly 30% since 2023. While this is exciting news, an underfunded and understaffed NLRB cannot process worker petitions and unfair labor practices in time to support the law and workers when it’s needed most.
“Justice delayed is justice denied, and there are inherent delays because of the lack of resources, i.e., funds available so that I can staff up,” Abruzzo said on the panel.
We cannot solely rely on the law and a third-party system that we do not control to build our power. Guild members instead own their power and show it by building a movement of collective action.
These are the numbers since 2021:
- 6,268 workers unionizing with us across 135 workplaces
- 100+ first contracts won
- 91 strikes
There’s an old-school Guild button you may have seen. Around the outside edge it says: Whatever It Takes.
Whatever.
It.
Takes.
In solidarity,
Jon