This Thursday is Thanksgiving for our American members. I hope almost all of y’all have the day off and can enjoy spending it with friends and family and hold onto the people you’re thankful for.
I think about how I was helped into this union by folks I never knew existed. And I see thousands of our members every week stand up for someone else and help someone else they don’t know. And that’s true power.
I am thankful to be part of a massive family 27,000 large in the Guild alone. But 400,000 strong in the Communications Workers of America.
This week I’ll be especially thinking about how thousands of you have stood with our striking family in Pittsburgh at the Post-Gazette. Please join me in continuing to stand with them and donate directly to their holiday fund to help them this season.
Washington Post workers marched on Post CEO Will Lewis over his demand last week that folks return to the office five days a week.
“Our CEO wants us back in the office 5 days a week, but when we marched to his office to deliver messages from employees about his new RTO policy, *he* wasn’t even in the office.” said Post Guild Unit Chair Kathleen Floyd. “We’re continuing to push back on this outdated policy that impacts the hardworking employees of The Washington Post – the heart of this company – and demand that he speak to us in person to answer questions about his decision making.” Lewis hasn’t spoken to Post staffers in over 184 days.
Lewis is under review by U.K. police over allegations that he obstructed justice 13 years ago and helped Rupert Murdoch grapple with an escalating phone-hacking scandal at his U.K. tabloids. Lewis has lost the confidence of the Post newsroom, especially after his poor handling of owner Jeff Bezos’ decision to withhold an endorsement for Kamala Harris 11 days before the election.
That move and its poor rollout has injured the trust readers have in the Post. In the aftermath, the Post lost a quarter of a million subscribers. Those losses will ultimately hurt the journalists and other workers at the Post who tell important stories every day. I’m a subscriber and I’m going to keep being a subscriber. And I’m standing with the Post Guild.
The Associated Press announced last Monday that it is planning to reduce its workforce by 8% through a combination of voluntary buyouts and layoffs. Earlier this year Gannett and McClatchy said they were dropping their subscriptions to the news service, impacting the AP’s revenue. Still, the News Media Guild, our local union that represents AP staff, fought to ensure that impacted Guild members will get approached with a voluntary buyout first and no employee will be required to accept the company’s offer. The buyout includes separation pay and a subsidy of 50% for a worker’s COBRA premium or retiree health care premium.
NBC News members projected messages onto 30 Rock in New York City. “Cesar Conde, Breaking the Law” “Breaking news? Breaking the law” with the hashtag #NBCUnionbusters were projected above the observation deck entrance. Our members there also mailed hundreds of postcards to NBC News executives demanding a fair contract.
“Our newsrooms have been operating without a labor contract for almost five years, as executive leadership drags out negotiations, repeatedly violates federal labor law, and refuses to agree to the Guild’s reasonable proposals,” workers said in a statement. “Our terms are standard for the industry and comparable to other union agreements in the building.”
Chicago Tribune journalists secured a first contract after six years of negotiations. Yes, that is a long amount of time. Reporters, photographers and other journalists first unionized in April 2018, when they were part of a the company called tronc. Tronc which was rudderless, burdened by debt and “managed” by guys with big egos and no ideas. Workers started bargaining early on, but the company was bought by Alden Global Capital in May 2021 and the vulture hedge fund brought negotiations to a standstill. Through it all, these journalists stuck with it with support from across The NewsGuild-CWA.
Eight other Tribune newsrooms ratified their first contracts in June. All groups coordinated with each other throughout bargaining and journalists in several newsrooms went on a 24-hour strike in February.
The Chicago Tribune contract provides raises, a signing bonus for journalists who haven’t seen a raise since 2018 and it retains the 401(k) match, raises minimum salaries and puts the newsroom on a path to pay equity. The contract also provides protections around artificial intelligence and many standard benefits found in Guild contracts.
“We won because we fought, and we fought because we believe in the work we do for Chicago,” said Unit Chair Jake Sheridan. “The world needs people to push for truth right now. That’s what we do. This contract gives us a little more stability and a little more pay so we can keep doing it.”
“What we say at the bargaining table has no weight without the force of our members,” said bargaining chair Lizzie Kane. “We succeeded at the table because our members were willing to walk out, sign complaints, make media appearances and pressure the company to give us the benefits we deserve.”
In another MAJOR win, Southern California journalists ratified their first contract with private equity vulture, Alden Global Capital after approving an overwhelming strike authorization vote in September. This was the first time journalists approved an open-ended strike against an Alden-owned newsroom.
Some of the gains in the new contract include:
- Some members with many years of experience who have been horribly underpaid will see raises of over 48%.
- Protections that honor time worked, such as a procedure for layoffs in inverse order of seniority. At-will employment is eliminated by new just cause protections, ensuring discipline is fair and transparent.
- Guardrails around management performing Guild work, the use of AI, freelance contracting and involuntary changes in beat assignments for reporters.
“The gains in this contract will be life-changing to Guild members, especially those at the bottom of the pay scale. Some of those people are veteran colleagues who have not received a raise in over a decade. This commitment to them all is a step in the right direction in the future of journalism,” said Charlie Vargas, reporter and member of the Guild’s contract actions team.
“This is a first step in repairing some of the damage that Wall Street has done to local journalism and to Main Street here in Southern California,” said Matt Pearce, president of Media Guild of the West.
“These journalists stood up, demanded what was fair, and now the Southern California News Group is set to add at least $700,000 of new investment into their journalism serving our communities at a time when many of our other local newsrooms have been making cutbacks.”
The attack on our newsrooms by private equity vultures is a primary threat to the future of journalism. If you are interested in learning about how NewsGuild members are fighting back, join us next month for our virtual panel. Guild members nationwide will discuss the ongoing fight against Alden Global Capital in their communities.
We have a long fight ahead of us, but through organizing our newsrooms, we will continue to win contracts that set new standards for the industry and safeguard our future.
Bangor Daily News journalists also recently ratified a first contract with an overwhelming majority voting in support. Contract highlights include:
- Wage increases
- Improved paid time off policy
- Better health insurance premium arrangement
- Photo gear stipends for photographers
“This first contract was a labor of love and many, many hours of hard work,” said Christopher Burns, the BDN Union’s council chair and a member of the Bargaining Committee. “It represents a positive step forward for us. The Bangor Daily News’ hardworking journalists will see improved compensation and our contract terms will provide for a better work-life balance.”
This is the first union to represent the BDN newsroom after two failed campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s.
Two pieces of legislation are in motion and would impact all NewsGuild members. The first one is H.R. 9495, a bill that passed the U.S. House last week and includes a provision that would give the Treasury Secretary almost unilateral power to strip the tax-exempt status from any nonprofit organization it deems to be “providing material support to terrorist organizations.”
Why does this matter? This bill includes a poison pill that removes due process and gives a lot of power to one individual in a future administration.
H.R. 9495 is a threat to nonprofits where we have members, such as ProPublica, the Texas Tribune, Wisconsin Watch, ACLU affiliates, Southern Poverty Law Center and more. But it also threatens our union itself because unions are also nonprofits.
We’ll soon be asking members and allies to contact their senators and make sure they do not pass legislation that could harm journalists and union members across the U.S.
The other legislation is the PRESS Act, a federal shield law that would protect two rights Americans hold dear: the right to free speech and a free press. The bill is meant to protect journalists and sources from government spying and other interference. It unanimously passed the House with bipartisan support in January. However, President-elect Donald J. Trump called on Republicans to ‘kill’ the bill.
The U.S. Constitution guarantees that every American has the right to a free press and the right to free speech so that we may tell our stories without fear. The PRESS Act protects all voices: news sources, whistleblowers and the journalists they talk to from media outlets across the spectrum. This issue transcends ideological lines and reaches beyond our newsrooms to directly impact the rights of every American.
I released a statement calling on Congress to pass the PRESS Act, but it will take all of us calling senators to get it passed and protect tens of thousands of journalists and the speech of every American. More details to come soon, but start thinking about organizing your readers and community to engage and support the passage of the PRESS Act.
Our friends at the Society of Professional Journalists (proud member here!) have a short video to learn more.
TNG Director of Collective Bargaining Danielle Newsome joined NABJ last week to discuss what happens AFTER you organize your newsroom. The event, “You Joined a (Journalism) Union, Now What?”, can be watched here on Youtube!
At one point, the moderator, Taylor Rogers, US Labour and Equity Correspondent for the Financial Times, tees up a question for Danielle about the next few years of organizing journalists:
(6:28) ROGERS: We’re getting ready for the next presidential administration which we do not expect to be friendly to labor unions. Are we going to be able to organize in the same way that we have in the past?
(6:42) NEWSOME: A second Trump administration is going to be emboldened and might be more effective at changing the laws to make them less worker-friendly, and to pass anti-union legislation to roll back protections that currently exist. That could happen. But, it will take time. There are still processes that these changes will have to go through and unions have never relied on the law as our main source of power. It’s about coming together to take collective action, and I can tell you during the first Trump administration, we saw a wave of union activity.
In the summer of 2018, there were teacher strikes in red states like there had never been before and the NewsGuild had new organizing in 25 different workplaces, and by 2020, 48 new unions formed under The NewsGuild, so a lot of union organizing happened during that time. If economic conditions change and more people see unions as an avenue to pushback, we’ll be here.
Unions are here to bring people together, to fight, and more people might be inspired to join in that effort under the incoming administration.
Our family at the Southern Poverty Law Center Union recently launched a Layoff Fund to support our 60+ laid-off colleagues. Despite the layoffs, the SPLC Union hasn’t given up fighting for a just and equitable workplace.
SPLC leadership plans to spend hundreds of thousands to hire three new executives after laying off 61 union members in June. One of the new management positions starts the salary at $300,000/year. Meanwhile, there’s been no workload relief or adjusted compensation for on-the-ground workers directly pursuing the SPLC’s mission.
The SPLC Union fought tooth and nail for an enhanced severance package, but it hasn’t been enough to sustain many former members in a tough job market. If you have a moment today to support these workers, please consider donating to help support these families ahead of the holiday season.
The NewsGuild continues to expand on Bluesky! I’ve noticed Ziff Davis Creators Guild, the NYT Tech Guild, and the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh on the platform. Now’s the time to join if you’ve haven’t yet. Be sure to follow those accounts and share any local or unit accounts back to me so we can add you to our “NewsGuild Universe” list.
Still wondering what the heck Bluesky is? You click here to watch CNN’s recent interview with the Bluesky CEO to learn a bit more about how they are attempting to build for the next phase of social media.
Have a great week and a Happy Thanksgiving!
In solidarity,
Jon