Hearst Connecticut (finally!) heads towards an election

After an eight-month wait, journalists at Hearst Connecticut won a ruling outlining their election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board. Workers first launched their union campaign in August. The ruling was delayed by understaffing at the NLRB, which has had an essentially flat budget for the last decade.

After workers launched their union, Hearst suggested that they were not one bargaining unit but instead should be divided into five separate units. Workers presented evidence at the hearing and heard from the NLRB what they already knew:

“… the employees’ virtually identical skills, duties, and working conditions; the complete functional integration of the proposed unit; and the consistent interchange between employees assigned to different teams and different locations establish that the petitioned-for unitis an appropriate unit.”

So what does this mean? It means journalists in Connecticut are finally going to have an election!

More than 100 eligible Hearst Connecticut employees — all non-management editorial staff at the company’s papers and news sites — will have the chance to vote. 

“Over the last eight months since filing for an election we have found that organizing a staff union has encouraged closer collaboration in our jobs, greatly improving both our journalism and our morale,” said Brian Zahn, a reporter and organizing committee member. “This vote is nearly a year in the making, and we are excited to conclude this election and meet our company at the bargaining table to negotiate a contract that affirms the important work of local journalists in Connecticut.”

The NLRB will send ballots by mail to the home addresses of eligible voters on May 1. They are due back by mail back by May 21. 

Hearst has been aggressively union-busting and fighting the journalists seeking to have a right to form a union and negotiate over their wages, benefits and working conditions. Since August the company has fired multiple members of the union’s organizing committee. 

Journalists and other media workers are already unionized in Hearst, including at the Albany Times Union in New York and the San Francisco Chronicle. The NewsGuild-CWA represents more than 27,000 workers, including at more than 320 media workplaces including the Hartford Courant, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Pro Publica and many more.

You can support these journalists by sending a letter to Hearst calling on management to respect the results of the election and immediately begin bargaining in good faith with the Connecticut News Guild. 

You can also support them by following the CT News Guild accounts on Twitter/X, Instagram and Bluesky. 

And, to support a CT News Guild organizing committee member who was recently fired, you can contribute to the fundraiser here.

Original Post:  https://newsguild.org/hearst-connecticut-finally-heads-towards-an-election/