Posts tagged Journalists
Special Feature: How Public Employee Unions Built California’s Most Powerful Political Machine
July 13, 2026 // In California, public employee unions are often among the most influential organizations helping determine who becomes governor, mayor, county supervisor or school board trustee. They endorse candidates. They contribute millions of dollars to campaigns and independent expenditures. They provide campaign volunteers, voter outreach, mail programs, and political infrastructure that many candidates could not easily replace. By the time contract negotiations begin, the relationship between labor and management has often existed for months or years. That does not mean elected officials simply surrender to union demands. Many negotiate in good faith and work hard to protect taxpayers while fairly compensating public employees. But in government, the officials responsible for approving compensation packages are frequently supported by the same organizations representing the employees who will benefit from those agreements.
USC faculty groups vote to unionize and university vows to challenge it
June 7, 2026 // Not all eligible USC faculty have been supportive. The effort drew opposition from full-time non-tenure faculty at the Gould School of Law, who said in spring that they were “unanimously opposed to the effort to include us.” The group cited American Bar Assn. accreditation standards that it said already provided workers with protections “reasonably similar to tenure” and encouraged law faculty to remain out of university unions. Some professors in pharmacy, engineering and education schools also publicly opposed unionizing.
Journalists at McClatchy-owned papers in WA and Idaho go on daylong strike
May 28, 2026 // For the one-day strike, journalists at the news outlets are asking readers not to visit the newspapers' websites. With the local journalists off the job, Courtney Scott, executive officer of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, said it's anyone's guess what the company will fill its news sites with. " I think there's a chance that they post a bunch of AI garbage, that's a thing they've done," Scott said. "I don't know. But it's not our problem today." One of the things union members have fought for in this contract is better protections against AI. The company has used AI-generated content on its websites, at times without prior authorization or notice to the reporters, whose content is feeding the AI.
Unionized ProPublica staff are on strike over AI, layoffs, and wages
April 9, 2026 // Unionized staff at ProPublica, one of the country’s leading nonprofit newsrooms, are walking off the job for 24 hours beginning Wednesday and asking the public to honor a digital picket line. The roughly 150 members of the ProPublica Guild are in the midst of negotiating a collective bargaining agreement after unionizing in 2023. The union says key issues are still in contention, including protections around the use of AI, “just cause” provisions around disciplining or firing an employee, layoff protections, and wages.
ProPublica’s unionized staff vote to authorize strike: ‘We are ready to walk off the job’
March 22, 2026 // The unionized staff at ProPublica voted to authorize a strike Thursday evening, declaring they were "ready to walk off the job" in order to send a message to management.
Some Post-Gazette workers call for new union leadership
January 25, 2026 // The division comes roughly three weeks after the paper’s publisher, Block Communications Inc., announced the decision to shutter the paper in May. It followed failed attempts to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to halt a lower court order that required the company to make changes to its health insurance coverage for union workers.
Unionized POLITICO Journalists ‘Win Landmark Arbitration’ On AI Protections
December 9, 2025 // Unionized Journalists employed at POLITICO and E&E News (The PEN Guild) have secured a major victory in their arbitration case against POLITICO management over the company’s unilateral introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools that bypassed negotiated safeguards and undermined core journalistic standards. In a detailed decision, the arbitrator found POLITICO violated the Collective Bargaining Agreement when it launched two AI-driven products - a “Live Summaries” feature used during the 2024 Democratic National Convention and Vice Presidential Debate, and the Capitol AI Report-Builder tool for POLITICO Pro subscribers - without providing required notice, bargaining, or human oversight, as required by the contract.
Los Angeles Times Journalists Ratify New Labor Contract, Averting Strike
December 4, 2025 // The deal offers members thousands of dollars in raises. Employees at the Times will receive $3,000 in wage increases in the first year of the contract, $2,750 in the second year and $2,500 in the third year. Those who work at Times Community News will receive $5,000 raises in the first year of the deal and $4,000 in the second and third years. The contract also enshrines Juneteenth as a holiday, codifies protections around employees using their chosen names and pronouns and asserts that the paper must respond when members face online harassment. The deal requires that management disclose any mandatory drug testing in job postings and creates union-covered “per diem” positions (a move intended to limit the use of non-union freelancers and temporary workers).
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette journalists planning to return to work, ending 3-year strike
November 25, 2025 // Part of those nerves comes from what happens on Monday. After a rally outside the paper's office to celebrate Monday morning they will head inside, unsure of exactly what to expect. "We've heard nothing from the Post-Gazette," Goldstein said.
Los Angeles Times Journalists Authorize a Strike
October 14, 2025 // Eighty-five percent of members who belong to the newsroom’s union and participated in the vote opted to allow the labor group to call a strike. The union, a Local of the Media Guild of the West, represents more than 200 reporters, editors, photographers, designers and others at L.A.’s hometown paper. Around 98 percent of those participated in the vote.