Happy Thursday!
If you’re a NewsGuild member, you’ve probably gotten a text from a striker (or maybe me!) in the last few days asking you to support our striking members here in Pittsburgh. We’ve been working out of Strike HQ (generously donated by the United Steelworkers) and have been using Hustle to text people en masse. They’re real texts coming from strikers and we’ve sent about 20,000 messages to Guild and CWA members. I encourage you to engage with folks! And please give if you can. We will win this strike together.
After 100 days, the company still refuses to do two things that would end the strike: 1) pay for health insurance premiums and 2) follow federal law and bargain in good faith. That’s it! The company could end the strike and return to normal by writing one small check. I don’t understand why the Blocks and their law firm think it’s wiser to break the law and deny single mothers health insurance, but I am not an evil millionaire disconnected from regular people.
This week we’re holding strikebreakers to account. Crossing a picket line hurts everyone and prolongs the strike. Stephen Karlinchak, the striking librarian at the Post-Gazette, summed up why he’s on strike in a column that just published yesterday.
“Being on strike: If not for me, for whom? It is for young journalists named Andrew and Alex, Natalie and Becca, Tyler and John. It is about seasoned and veteran journalists named Pam and Bob, Karen and Nate. It is about talented copy editors named Rob and Joe. It is about a lot of people who need to be recognized and compensated for what they do seven days a week, 365 days a year.
“One thing I have learned is that journalism and the community at large are dependent upon talented and dedicated women and men who are committed to their craft. These are the people with whom I stand”
Will you stand with Stephen and the 110 other strikers in Pittsburgh?
Take two minutes to add your name to this letter urging scabs to join the strike.
Also of note, I just sent a letter to the Department of Justice, asking them to investigate the attempted takeover of the Pittsburgh City Paper by the Block family. I wrote that the takeover “is a continuation of the Post-Gazette’s decades long quest to consolidate and dominate the Pittsburgh news market.” Read the full letter here.
The Toledo Blade NewsGuild filed an unfair labor practice over the mistreatment of workers. The Blade is also owned by the Block family. A Blade reporter was recently forced to perform work for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette — a Block-owned newspaper where workers are on strike. That explicitly violates the contract, which says Guild members cannot be required to do the work of other union members who are on strike.
What’s more disgusting is that the work was to write an obituary for Robert Ballow, a founder of the notorious anti-union and anti-journalist law firm King & Ballow. I will not link to the article, but a quote from Block Communications Inc. Chairman and CEO Allan Block said these lawyers taught the Blocks to play “the long game” against “entrenched and powerful newspaper unions.”
The funny thing to me is that the Blocks and their lawyers think that “the union” is some third-party entity. They fail to see that “the union” is 26,000 members strong and growing. Thousands of workers from more than 170 workplaces have joined our movement in the last few years. We’re one of the fastest-growing unions on the continent.
The union is you, and the actions you and your colleagues take to improve your lives and raise the standards for every worker. We are an unbeatable force.
Which leads me to….
Congrats to our new members at Reveal, who won voluntary recognition after announcing the union campaign about a week ago! Yesterday the workers announced they achieved voluntary recognition and are ready to get a seat at the table and start negotiating for the best version of Reveal and the Center for Investigative Reporting.
These workers are part of the first investigative journalism nonprofit organization and join other nonprofit news workers at the VTDigger and the Center for Public Integrity. Be sure to give them a follow.
Unfortunately we’ve seen some more layoffs among our member newsrooms. Yesterday, without any clear explanation, Washington Post Publisher Fred Ryan started laying off journalists in the newsroom. Post Guild leaders wrote, “We have received no clear explanation for why these layoffs had to happen. As far as we can tell, they are not financially necessary or rooted in any coherent business plan from our publisher, who has said that he expects the company to be larger a year from now.”
Daily Kos also announced they wanted to start doing layoffs, before the workers have finished bargaining a first contract. Now, this could be illegal. An employer cannot lay workers off during status quo (the time between winning your union and ratifying your first contract). We’re standing with these workers. Take a moment to read their latest update, sign their petition and leave them a comment — of course they’re updating everyone right on the Daily Kos website!
And last week Vox Media announced layoffs, which affect folks at New York Magazine. Workers there are making sure that the company keeps its contractual obligations and that our members are taken care of.
It’s clear we have to fight to make sure we have strong layoff and buyout protections in our contracts. We must also take constant collective actions to hold the boss to account. Layoffs should not happen.
Our members at NBC are fighting back after the company abruptly and illegally laid off several union journalists without providing any advance notice. Management is also attempting to remove msnbc.com staffers from the union, attempting to decree that they are no longer part of the Guild without engaging in negotiations with the union. In response, workers filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board.. “This clear violation of the law is yet another brazen example of NBC attempting to strip its workers of their right to organize and bargain together,” workers said in a statement. Folks plan to take further collective action against management’s illegal actions to demand justice and respect for their laid-off coworkers and to swiftly reach an agreement on a first contract with the company.
Martha Valadez, a steward and organizer at Jobs with Justice, was interviewed alongside other labor leaders in a Dissent Magazine piece about abortion access as a worker issue.
“It was amazing that I was part of a union that was creating spaces for us to talk about these issues, figure out strategies and tactics, and provide resources for our membership to distribute knowledge and to share power in their locals,” she said in the interview. “We need more unions and we need more representation.”
There are still so many people who need to be covered, who need to be protected, who deserve access to healthcare and the right to make their own decisions about their bodies. And it’s important for us to think about gender-affirming care and gender-affirming language when we’re talking about abortion access.
NiemanLab’s Sarah Scire interviewed a bunch of Guild members and even traveled to Pittsburgh to cover the our first open-ended newspaper strike in the U.S. in more than two decades.
“The strike may be inspiring others,” Scire wrote.
“In the weeks since the Post-Gazette union went on strike, hundreds of journalists from 14 Gannett-owned newspapers walked off the job to protest low wages, layoffs, and other cost-cutting measures in local news. Journalists at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram went on strike for 24 days. And The New York Times saw its first major labor protest since 1981.”
Twenty-one newsrooms participated in a one day or longer work stoppage last year.
Local executive board member and activist Andrew Goldstein (we lovingly call him “Goldie”) summed it up well:
“We’re here fighting because we love Pittsburgh and we love the Post-Gazette, but we also know that the eyes of the journalism community across the country are on us,” Goldstein said. “Yes, we’re fighting for ourselves, but we’re also out here fighting because we want journalists everywhere to be treated fairly.”We have a few upcoming events! We’re hosting a town hall on Artificial Intelligence in our work at 7p.m. ET Thursday, February 9. Register for that here. See all upcoming events on our calendar, including for more steward modules over the next several weeks.
In solidarity,
Jon Schleuss
President, The NewsGuild-CWA