Organizing Update

Workers at media outlets are coming together to improve their working conditions and strengthen their ability to serve their communities by joining NewsGuild-CWA.

Editorial employees at tech, culture, entertainment, and lifestyle publications PC Magazine, Mashable, Geek.com and AskMen, have announced their decision to form a union, and are asking parent company Ziff Davis for voluntary recognition. Staffers are citing stagnant wages, at-will employment, protection from harassment, and the need for a voice in the newsroom as motivating their desire to form a union.

Workers at the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization, won voluntary recognition for their union from management this week. The new bargaining unit will consist of 20 members, including employees in the news and development departments.

The staff of Hoy Los Angeles, a Spanish-language sister paper of the Los Angeles Times, petitioned management for union recognition as part of the L.A. Times Guild last week. Around 10 Hoy employees develop and translate content, manage social media channels, and create photography and video for Hoy and for the Los Angeles Times en Español. They are effectively L.A. Times employees, and they deserve to be recognized as part of the union that represents the company's employees.

Journalists at three Maryland community newsrooms – the Capital Gazette, the Carroll County Times and the Baltimore Sun Media Group – won voluntary union recognition from their employer on Dec. 3. The three news organizations will form a single bargaining unit, the Chesapeake News Guild.