Posts tagged Journalists
Reuters to Allow Employees Mostly Work From Home in Tentative Agreement with Union
January 2, 2023 // The agreement between Reuters and the union expired nearly two years ago. In August, Reuters employees held their first strike in decades over stalled wage negotiations. Reuters reportedly offered 1 percent wage increases over three years, despite a 9 percent inflation rate for urban consumers. Last month, unionized employees authorized another strike. The agreement lets Reuters change its work-from-home policies after the 2023 year. It also limits management’s use of nondisclosure agreements in harassment and discrimination cases, according to Bloomberg. Union members will vote on the contract today (Dec. 28).
Worker strikes surged in 2022
December 20, 2022 // There were 374 worker strikes started in 2022 — a 39% increase over 2021, according to a database run by Cornell. Why it matters: Fueled partly by anger over working conditions in the pandemic and spurred on by other labor wins, all sorts of workers — warehouse employees, teachers, nurses, graduate students, journalists — walked off the job. Many others voted to unionize — including at more than 260 Starbucks stores in the past year — demanding better pay and working conditions.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram strike marks a major moment for Texas newsroom unions
December 6, 2022 // When 21 reporters from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram announced their intention to walk out Monday, it made headlines. But as the first open-ended newsroom strike in Texas history, it was also a big step for the state’s fledgling newsroom unionizing efforts. In addition to the Star-Telegram newsroom, reporters at the Dallas Morning News and Al Dia; and the Austin American-Statesman unionized as news guilds in the past two years. The Star-Telegram is owned by McClatchy, the Statesman by Gannett, and the Dallas Morning News and Al Dia are owned by DallasNews Corp. All three unions are in the process of negotiating contracts and all of them have cited pay issues as a major driver.
WFAE journalists want to become the first public radio station in the Carolinas to unionize. Will they succeed?
November 28, 2022 // WFAE may become the first public radio station in the Carolinas to form a union. On Tuesday, a group of content staff members — hosts, reporters, producers and other journalists — announced their intention to unionize in tweets issued under the handle @wemakewfae. More than 70% of WFAE’s content staff signed on to a petition to form a union, the organizing committee said in the tweet thread and accompanying press release. The petition does not include newsroom managers.
About one-in-six U.S. journalists at news outlets are part of a union; many more would join one if they could
August 9, 2022 // The desire to join a union is much more prevalent among younger journalists than among their older peers: 77% of full- or part-time journalists ages 18 to 29 are either already a member of a union at their news organization (20%) or would join a union if it were available to them (57%). This is nearly twice the share among journalists 65 and older (41%) – 13% of whom report already being in a union and 28% of whom say they would join one if it were available to them. Differences also emerge by journalists’ gender, race and ethnicity. About six-in ten journalists who are women (63%) say they are either currently a union member or would join one if available, compared with 52% of journalists who are men. Black, Hispanic and Asian journalists are all more likely than White journalists to say they are either in a union or would join one if it were available to them.
Commentary: One proposal to modernize labor laws would benefit women; another could set them back decades
May 5, 2022 // The PRO Act seeks to regress to the 1950s workplace that denied workers the flexibility needed to balance work/life demands. The ERA would preserve the gains women have made and provide important rights of autonomy, privacy, and opportunity for women and men alike.
How to Start a Union at Your Company
April 8, 2022 //
Lib Journos Go on Strike. Here’s What They’re Demanding To Return to Work.
March 7, 2022 // Employees were also critical of management's reluctance to fund "a robust diversity hiring initiative" without first consulting the "Diversity Committee" or to allow the journalists to work from home indefinitely. The union has demanded "protection from forced relocations to the NYC office," which is fair enough because New York City is a terrible place to live. The union's suggestion that management was "offering inadequate family leave," however, received pushback even from supporters of the strike.
Pennsylvania Task Force Wants To Import California’s Catastrophic ‘ABC Test,’ Crush Independent Contractors
March 3, 2022 // However, since the PRO Act is currently stalled in the U.S. Senate—and may be impossible to pass after the 2022 mid-term elections—unions and their political allies are trying to put the ‘ABC Test’ into effect in the statehouses.
New York Times’ Wirecutter writers plan strike around Black Friday
November 8, 2021 // Over 90% of Wirecutter union members have voted to authorize a work stoppage in late November