Our members at Law360 are on an unfair labor practice strike this morning and I’m on the train to rally with them in New York this afternoon.
Management, led by LexisNexis Vice President Teresa Harmon, continues to demand that union members accept paltry raises that fail to seriously address rising costs of living and dramatically increased costs for healthcare. Throughout bargaining management has repeatedly dismissed the impact of inflation on members as irrelevant to negotiations about wages. All while refusing to agree to the union’s reasonable demands that the company remedy its March 2024 unlawful layoff of 26 union-represented workers.
ADD YOUR NAME: Support Law360 Union Journalists On Strike
Law360 management laid off 10% of its Guild-represented newsroom staff in violation of U.S. labor law, hours after LexisNexis officials congratulated themselves on earning record revenue in 2023. The NewsGuild of New York is challenging the March layoffs at the National Labor Relations Board as a violation of the company’s obligation to maintain the status quo of the expired collective bargaining agreement.
The bargaining committee stayed at the table well past midnight and management finally crawled back. The terms were unacceptable, so our members went on strike. Our members will begin picketing from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m ET and holding a rally at 1 p.m. ET today outside Law360/LexisNexis headquarters at 230 Park Ave., New York City. We’re also picketing online, asking Law360 subscribers to not click on or open any digital content during the strike.
Be sure to follow the Law360 workers. You can also donate directly to support them.
We’re still on strike at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. We’re currently waiting for a hearing with a judge to consider a petition from the National Labor Relations Board over the company’s violations of federal law. Continue to respect the picket line. I’ve seen so many young people straight out of college announce they’re taking a strike-breaking job at the Post-Gazette. Remind folks that’s a scab job and they should not work at a struck publication. Journalists hold power to account every day, why wouldn’t we continue to hold the Post-Gazette to account for violating federal law?
Last week Executive Vice President Marian Needham and I joined our strikers in Pittsburgh’s annual Labor Day Parade. More than 22 months into their strike and they’re still chanting and bringing energy to their fight. They’re still producing a top-notch strike publication with the Pittsburgh Union Progress (which we affectionately call the “PUP”). Donate to our Pittsburgh strikers here.
We’re also supporting our striking family at CWA’s AT&T South bargaining unit who have been out for more than three weeks over unfair labor practices. Our folks at the Miami Herald joined the picket line last week. They’re members of CWA Local 3108, which set up a hardship fund to support their members.
You can support striking AT&T workers in the southeast by visiting CWA.org/ATTstrike.
Are you strike-curious? You wouldn’t be alone. Law360’s strike today is our 34th strike this year. And 36 newsrooms stuck last year. Big and small: from the New York Times to the Palm Springs Desert Sun. More than 11,000 new members have joined our union in the past eight years and it’s become increasingly clear that we can’t simply make logical arguments at the bargaining table. Thousands of Guild members know the only way to move management is by building escalating pressure campaigns that win supermajorities of support ending in a work stoppage. We never want to strike. But we have to use our power. And we have more power than we know.
Join us 12 PM to 5 PM Eastern Time on Saturday, September 28 for our third year of Strike School, a five-hour class of workshops run by Guild members and leaders to answer your questions and give you the tools you need to successfully withhold your labor. It’s on Zoom and registration is now open.
Register here for 2024’s Strike School.
There’s still time to apply for financial assistance to attend Cornell’s Labor Leadership Skills Bootcamp in October in Buffalo, N.Y. Registration is still open. Local and national NewsGuild officers and staff can nominate scholarship candidates. The scholarship honors the legacy of Bruce Nelson, a Guild staff representative who improved the lives of thousands of Guild members.
Individuals can apply directly with the endorsement of their local union. The participant’s local will be asked to pay the tuition fee and the national union will reimburse the local when the participant completes the course and submits a copy of the ILR training completion certificate. The scholarship grants cover tuition only; locals or individual participants will be responsible for any other related expenses. More details here. Apply for support here.
Journalistic standards are slipping at the Baltimore Sun. Since The Sun was taken over by David Smith and Armstrong Williams in 2024, staff and residents of the city have been taken aback by sliding journalistic standards in the paper. This is compounded by the approach of this new management to its staff seeking their first pay increases in over a decade, with ownership taking a slash and burn approach to their contract language.
Our members at the Sun are asking you to send a letter to David and Armstrong, so that they may see what their actions are doing to the reputation of this city’s paper of record, and to show that you have our backs as we bargain for a fair and just contract.
Our members at the Southern Poverty Law Center just dropped a 90% vote of No Confidence in SPLC CEO Margaret Huang. In June SPLC laid off 61 of our members. With years of funds in reserve, these layoffs were a targeted attempt to break the SPLC Union, represented by the Washington-Baltimore News Guild. Additionally, the gutting of the SPLC’s Learning for Justice program; support staff in Development, Creative, Legal; and the eradication of immigrant justice legal teams at such a critical time will have long-lasting effects on communities across the Deep South and the US.
Our members are asking you to join them in a letter calling on SPLC’s board to: 1) Remove Margaret Huang as CEO of Southern Poverty Law Center 2) Bargain with the SPLC Union to reverse layoffs for affected staff who choose to stay and 3) Meaningfully involve the SPLC Union in finding, interviewing, and hiring a new CEO.
Finally, members across the continent marched in Labor Day parades from Detroit to Toronto last week. It attempted to rain on folks at Saturday’s New York City Labor Day Parade, but we were undeterred and it quickly cleared up. It was sunny and temperate in Pittsburgh as we chanted “Post-Gazette—Still on strike!” Check out photos from Toronto, Detroit, Buffalo, Pittsburgh and New York. And be sure to check out the PUP’s coverage of the Pittsburgh parade.
In solidarity,
Jon Schleuss
President
The NewsGuild-CWA