Organizing Updates

Record Guild

Journalists, photographers, and producers at The Record, Daily Record, and New Jersey Herald got a boost when both of New Jersey's Senators and four Representatives expressed their disappointment that Gannett, which owns the newspapers, has chosen not to voluntarily recognize the workers' union.

In the letter, Senators Robert Menendez and Cory Booker and Representatives Bill Pascrell, Jr., Mikie Sherrill, Tom Malinowski, and Josh Gottheimer wrote that Gannett's union-busting is "anathema to democracy and has no place in New Jersey, where there is a proud and long history of unionized labor." They called on Gannett to "honor your employees' rights and refrain from any further anti union tactics," including captive audience meetings, attempts to break up the unit, and procedural delays.

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Minnesota Council of Nonprofits

Workers at the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, the largest state association of nonprofits in the country, have joined the Minnesota Newspaper & Communications Guild/NewsGuild-CWA Local 37002 and are asking for voluntary recognition for their union. Workers have organized around principles of racial justice and equitable programmatic changes at the organization.

Ileana Mejia, an MCN public policy advocate, said, "Through a union, I will be able to bring my full self and voice and articulate the needs we as workers of color have and actually move forward on concrete issues that affect us."

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Mobilize

Twenty-two workers at the community-organizing app Mobilize, which is owned by political tech company EveryAction, have unanimously chosen to join CWA Local 1101. The unit includes software engineers, sales representatives, and client support managers. EveryAction has agreed to voluntarily recognize the unit.

Workers at Mobilize chose to affiliate with CWA due to CWA's history of fighting big employers and the union’s ongoing tech worker organizing at employers like Glitch and Alphabet.

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Colorado Political Workers

More than 60 political workers in the Colorado state legislature, U.S. Congressional District offices, electoral campaigns, and local political organizations have formed the Political Workers Guild of Colorado (PWG) and affiliated with NewsGuild-CWA Local 37074. Legislative staff at the state and federal level are exempt from many workplace protections, so the PWG will operate as a first-of-its-kind unit focusing on working collectively to address grievances and bring dignity to their jobs.

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National Audubon Society

This week, the employees of the National Audubon Society headquarters, field offices, and centers publicly launched the Audubon for All Union, in partnership with CWA. In a statement, they said that they are organizing "to create a more secure and stable workplace, without the fears of job insecurity or an unsustainable work environment."

While other national environmental organizations like Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and the Sunrise Movement have formed unions through voluntary recognition and without management interference, Audubon's management has retained an anti-union consulting firm. On Monday, CWA filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge against Audubon asserting that management has violated the National Labor Relations Act by telling employees that they cannot discuss the organizing drive with their co-workers and directing some employees to remove their signatures from a statement in support of the union.

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RAICES

Workers at RAICES, the largest immigration non-profit in Texas, are uniting to form a union with the Washington-Baltimore News Guild, NewsGuild-CWA Local 32035. They want to empower employees at RAICES to be able to negotiate fair salaries and benefits, and to have more transparency about wages and paid time off policies. "Unions help human rights nonprofit organizations model justice and equity in the workplace," the workers said in a statement posted on their website.

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More NewsGuild Wins!

In Southern California, three-fourths of the non-management editorial employees at the Southern California News Group (SCNG) have signed authorization cards to join the NewsGuild-CWA. SCNG has 11 daily newspapers and more than a dozen weekly publications across Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties and is owned by Alden Global Capital's Digital First Media, which is notorious for slashing newsroom budgets.