UFCW Guild members just wrapped up a 24-hour strike against their employer in response to unfair labor practice charges filed against the union. That’s right. UFCW, the union, is the employer and we’ve represented the members for a very long time there. This marks the 30th strike by NewsGuild members so far in 2024.
Despite the Guild’s attempts to bargain in good faith to reach a new contract, Guild-covered employees at the UFCW have been working under an expired contract for over 4 months now.
I joined them on the picket line outside UFCW headquarters yesterday at noon to rally, chant and march on the picket line with members. Everyone was in red marching on K street right in front of the union building. Guild members from the Washington Post, the AFL-CIO and others nearby joined the picket.
I returned later in the day and marched with our strikers again until they shut the line down at 8 p.m. Some workers had recorded over 50,000 steps!
The workers said it best, “union values start at home!” And UFCW leadership needs to listen.
You can show your support for UFCW Guild members fighting for a fair contract by sending a letter to UFCW management asking them to do better and treat its members fairly, because a labor union must lead by example. And you can donate to Washington-Baltimore’s defense fund.
I also joined our Law360 Union members in DC for a leafleting action outside the prestigious Burton Awards, where many Law360 readers were in attendance. Attendees — many lawyers in black tie walking up a red carpet — got flyers drawing attention to management’s unlawful behavior at the bargaining table. Law360 workers have been working under an expired contract since December 2022.
In addition to stonewalling our members at the bargaining table, Law360 management killed Killed Pro Say, a popular podcast loved by the legal community. They’ve also illegally laid off 26 workers and proposed little to no raises for members combined with a hike in healthcare costs.
That’s all while Lexis Nexis, the parent company, is raking in record profits.
Join us in telling Law360 management to bargain in good faith with our union, so Law360 can remain the trusted brand it is today by sending a letter to management.
Staff members at 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, one of New York City’s most powerful and influential unions, are getting their ballots to vote on unionizing with the Washington-Baltimore NewsGuild. When they win, they’ll cover more than 250 1199SEIU staffers from New England to Florida.
Despite working for one of the largest unions in the country, 1199 In House Staff United has not been embraced by management, and workers have faced staunch opposition from union leadership. Some 1199 workers have received anonymous phone calls urging them to vote against the union. Donald Hemmings, a training coordinator at 1199SEIU and a vocal union organizer, was abruptly fired. In response, staff has filed unfair labor practices charges against 1199SEIU.
You can read more about their fight to form a union in this great Documented NY piece.
About 20 workers at MarketWatch unionized with IAPE, our local union that represents folks at Dow Jones. They announced last week that they formed a union and delivered a mission statement to the Dow Jones CEO. “We organize for equality,” the workers wrote. “We organize to ensure quality. We organize to give our workers a living wage. We organize to ensure career advancement and job security. We organize to realize our potential. We organize to build our community and strengthen the brand promise of MarketWatch.”
IAPE called for voluntary recognition and they won it!
Finally, News Corp., owner of Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal, announced a deal with OpenAI that could be worth more than $250 million over five years. The deal is cloaked in secrecy. News stories written by our members will show up in ChatGPT. It follows other deals inked with the Associated Press, Axel Springer, which owns Insider and Politico and the Financial Times.
Most of those deals have allowed OpenAI to use news content for training generative AI models, but this one allows news to show up as answers from users.
One huge problem: no one can say how “accurate” generative AI models are. Are they 50% accurate? Are they 90%? Are they 99%? Yesterday I saw Google’s AI in search answer a question about whether poison was safe—saying it was.
Some folks will say that AI will get more accurate over time. But there’s no way to measure that and there isn’t an expert on this planet that can explain clearly how you get from the user’s prompt to the output answer. It’s automatic word choice using math based on the biases of the training data.
Our mission as journalists is to seek truth and report it. We strive to be accurate in our reporting. We must fight against company attempts to destroy our reputations alongside those of brands we write for. Our democracy is at stake.
IAPE released a statement and called on the company’s leaders to quickly hold a town hall and answer the questions from hundreds of journalists who want to know: how can a deal with a shady tech company help us advance the cause for honesty in the news that our readers deserve?
In solidarity,
Jon Schleuss
President, The NewsGuild-CWA