I’m traveling to Ottawa this week to attend the CWA Canada National Representative Council meeting. As The NewsGuild-CWA president, I’m a member of the council and am excited to hear from local leaders across Canada on the issues they’re facing and solutions they’re coming up with together. There will also be elections for several CWA Canada officer positions, including the treasurer and secretary.
Representatives from Montreal, Halifax, Toronto and Victoria will share updates from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Post Media newspapers, game workers, freelancers and more. Our union has a long history of supporting organizing, bargaining and striking to win contracts in Canada as well as the United States. The first collective agreement with the CBC was signed in 1953 by the officers of Local 213 of the American Newspaper Guild, and former NewsGuild President Charles Dale as a witness. That local is now the Canadian Media Guild 30213 and we dropped “American” from our union’s name a few years later. Today about 23% of our 27,000 members are in Canada and are also part of CWA Canada.
Executive Vice President Marian Needham and I are making the journey north to continue building solidarity in a moment when our countries’ political leaders are fighting and the United States president shamefully calls Canada the 51st state. We have so much more potential by working together and understanding our shared humanity than to use a border to divide us. I always love spending time with our Canadian family (and usually don’t want to come back to the states!)
The Post-Gazette won’t shut down and is being sold to the same nonprofit organization that runs The Baltimore Banner. Last week our members were informed the new owners will take over on May 3. The Venetoulis Institute has already had meetings with our members at the Post-Gazette and our local leadership reached out to start initial discussions. Our members haven’t worked for an employer that’s’ followed the law in about a decade, so we’re holding our breath in the hopes that the Banner folks will turn a new page.
Unfortunately, the new owners said they plan to cut jobs and not uphold our union contract.
There are several complications, including the fact that our members at the Post-Gazette won an injunction that’s never before been issued since the passing of the National Labor Relations Act.
So we can’t simply rely on holding our breath.
Sign a pledge standing with our members calling on the new owners to support a robust staff, bargain in good faith and fight back with our workers if the new owners fall short of these basic expectations.
Workers at Clean Water Action launched their union last week and won their union this week, after winning voluntarily recognition for more than 60 workers at the environmental advocacy organization. That means workers won’t face an election or delays. Instead, management is signalling it’s ready to start bargaining a first contract.
We have already represented a couple dozen workers at Clean Water Action in the Minnesota Newspaper and Communications Guild, however, workers outside of the land of 10,000 lakes weren’t part of the union. Until now.
The Pacific Media Workers Guild teamed up with the Minnesota Guild to support organizing the rest of the organization.
“I am organizing for a union at Clean Water Action because it is essential that we practice what we preach,” said Ellie Zarrow, a field canvass trainer based in Philadelphia, in a press release when the workers launched their union. “Advocating for the power of the people, the importance of making our voices heard, starts in our own offices.”
“Thank you to our amazing Organizing Committee and everyone who supported us!” workers said on Bluesky. Be sure to drop them a follow.
Associated Press management is pushing buyouts on 120 workers in our union and layoffs could be coming next if they don’t hit their quota. This is the second time in less than two years that AP has offered buyouts to U.S. staff.
AP journalists in the U.S. are on the frontlines providing essential news coverage and documenting history each and every day. AP was there because the journalists were there. Our members are asking you to text the AP’s Signal at +1 (202) 281-8604 and let management know how important it is to have human journalists in the field and covering our communities.
Our members at The New York Times “read” newspapers at a recent company all-hands meeting. Workers held up newspapers stenciled with red phrases “Fair contract now!” and “Health care we can afford” and “Fair wages” at the meeting. The main bargaining unit of more than 1,400 members is fighting for a new collective agreement includes five priorities:
- Raises that recognize the company’s profitability and our rising living costs;
- Keeping union work in our union;
- Remote work flexibility;
- Meaningful A.I. protections, and
- Affordable health care.
Last month I wrote about how The New York Times management is resistant to ethical AI protections.
Our members in Albany, N.Y. joined the New York State AFL-CIO’s podcast last week to discuss how Hearst has refused to agree to a new contract in 17 years. Wild!
The company imposed terms years ago and has come to the table, but not committed to previous agreements. It’s shameful behavior. Hearst also obliterated the collective agreement of journalists in Austin, Texas and offshored more than a dozen jobs in Dallas.
Albany Guild President Wendy Liberatore joined the podcast and shared details about the contract dispute and how folks could help. Watch or listen to it here.
News doesn’t happen between 9 to 5 from a cubicle and journalists at Hearst Connecticut are in the community showing management that inflexible work hours limit their local coverage.
In Connecticut, more than 100 workers at Hearst Connecticut Media Group unionized in August 2024. Hearst created legal delays and the workers finally voted overwhelmingly to unionize in May 2025. Despite an overwhelming union victory, Hearst refuses to come to the bargaining table.
Help Hearst Connecticut journalists by signing their petition here.
I just got back from Detroit from the first-ever Union Tech conference! It was a gathering of about 50 software engineers, data folks, organizers and rank-and-file workers coming together to try and improve the way tech supports the labor movement. Funny enough, a full quarter of the attendees were NewsGuild members.
Our group included members from New York Times Tech, the AFL-CIO, two Chicago Teachers Union staffers who recently unionized with the Chicago Guild, our organizing coordinator and myself. The large Guild presence was unintentional, yet, it was powerful to have so many activists in one space who are passionate about using data and technology to provide better tools and systems so that we build a labor movement capable of organizing millions of workers.
Before the conference I also got to look at some materials at the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University where our union’s historical archive is stored. I was moved to tears looking through the materials saved from the infamous Detroit strike we had in the 90’s.
We’ve recently moved offices and will be sending more recent materials to those archives, including a lot of the materials from our recent 3-year-long strike at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. It’s incredibly important that we pass on our knowledge to the next generation of labor leaders who will follow us.
Pacific Media Workers joined a lawsuit over the banning of safety gear at protests in Northern California. The measure is broad and vague and would prevent journalists and media workers from having safety equipment at protests that police have made chaotic. Tear gas, rubber bullets and pepper balls are common at too many protests. And because of that journalists need safety equipment. It’s something we fight for in our collective agreements and it’s unconstitutional for the government to ban safety gear. I’m very happy to see our members in Northern California join this fight.
Staff workers at 1199SEIU are asking for Guild support to send a letter to leadership demanding they engage in good-faith bargaining after they failed to do so in recent contract negotiations. The staffers at one of the largest local unions in the U.S. unionized with the Washington-Baltimore News Guild beginning in 2024.
1199SEIU advocates that employers must bargain fairly and respect workers’ rights. So why aren’t the union’s leaders? Send your letter to leaders here!
Next Monday, our friends at the National Writers Union are hosting a virtual panel on how media monopolies like Nexstar-TEGNA endanger democracy.
We’re co-hosting the panel at 7 p.m. ET Monday, April 27. The discussion will include Matt Pearce, the former Media Guild of the West local president, and Victor Pickard, among others. Register here.
Tonight we’re hosting a pay equity training to show how TNG-CWA members have organized to push equity as a practiced value in their workplaces. We’ll lift up examples from across our union, outline key tools and resources, and discuss how to pair a pay study with collective action. You can register for that here.
On April 25th, we’re partnering with the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee to host an in-person training in New York City to help workers learn to talk with co-workers and demand the working conditions we deserve. You can join that here.
And, on April 30th, we’re hosting a TNG Anti-harassment training. Join the effort to improve our readiness for, and response to, harassment in our workplaces and our union. Join us by registering here.
In solidarity,
Jon Schleuss
President
The NewsGuild-CWA