Organizing Update

TNG-CWA Organizes Chicago Reader

The Chicago Reader editorial employees have voted 19-0 to have a voice in the workplace as a unit of Local 34071 in the Chicago Newspaper Guild. The new unit will now elect officers and select a bargaining team to negotiate a contract with Wrapports LLC, owner of the Reader and the Chicago Sun-Times.

The idea of joining a union had been raised occasionally over the years at the 43-year-old Reader without gaining any traction. The vote took place on Jan. 16. Serious discussions among the staff began after the paper was purchased by Wrapports in 2012 and moved from the building it once owned at 11 E. Illinois into the Sun-Times Media suite at 350 N. Orleans.

Some of the Sun-Times editorial employees they share space with already belong to the NewsGuild. One Reader writer said employees hope that, in difficult times for the newspaper industry, Guild affiliation will give them a louder voice in the much larger company for which they now work.

"We appreciate that staff exercised their right to vote and acknowledge the decision," Wrapports CEO Tim Knight wrote in a statement.

Local 34071 Executive Director Craig Rosenbaum led the campaign and was assisted by Jerry Minkinnen, the local's retired executive director.