unions

The newsroom employees of the Los Angeles Times have voted to form a union for the first time amid growing turmoil at the storied paper. The National Labor Relations Board counted the ballots in downtown Los Angeles; the final vote count, according to the union and supporters and observers who were in the room and tweeting during the vote, was 248-44.

Sinclair Broadcast Group said Thursday that International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union Number 51 is no longer representing Sinclair employees at its ABC affiliate WICS Springfield, Ill. (DMA 88). […]

Journalists at the paper, in the middle of organizing a union, disagreed with the new editor’s call to lie low on social media.

News unions are back. They never really went away, of course, but for the first time in memory they are proactive rather than on the defensive. They are strong on promoting diversity and editorial independence, and often provide impressive raises, but tend to skimp on traditional worker protections — overtime pay and even just-cause firing — because they aren’t seen as that important to the new generation of newspeople.

Organized labor has begun a major push to unionize writers, producers and on-air talent who work on Vice Media’s video and TV programming, after successfully organizing digital newsrooms in recent years.

On Dec. 29, 2016, employees of Sinclair Broadcast Group’s NBC affiliate WTOV Wheeling, W.Va.-Steubenville, Ohio, filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to decertify the International Brotherhood of […]

Following in the stead of a number of pureplay news organizations, a majority of MTV’s staffers are now looking for union representation of their own. Daniel Marans reports that more than 80% of 50 eligible employees have voted for the Writers Guild of America, East to represent them.

While a majority of editorial staffers at Fusion signed union cards earlier this month, their efforts face new resistance from upper level management at the millennial-geared web publisher. According to Fusion staffers, executives have told employees at meetings in New York, Miami, Oakland and Los Angeles over the past two weeks that unionization would alter benefits, impact hiring and firing, hinder communication between writers and editors and cap salaries.

It has been nearly six months since Gabrielle Carteris, the former Beverly Hills, 90210 actress and longtime labor activist, was elected as president of Hollywood’s largest union — and she’s already making her mark.

Members of SAG-AFTRA have ratified a three-year successor deal to the union’s master contract with the advertising industry. Union leaders have asserted the commercials deal includes “more than $200 million” in pay hikes for members. The previous master contract provided $238 million in pay gains for members.

The SAG-AFTRA national board approved the recently-negotiated commercials agreement, the union announced Sunday, and the new contract will soon be sent to the organization’s membership for approval, probably in a week to ten days. No details of the deal were released.

SAG-AFTRA and the advertising industry have reached a tentative agreement on a new master contract. The two sides made the annnouncement Sunday but did not disclose any details.

The first contract designed and negotiated for a digital media company, Gawker, is described by the Writers Guild of America as unique. The contract, approved Monday, says editorial decisions must be made strictly by editorial staff, sets a minimum annual salary of $50,000 and ensures 3% yearly raises for staff members this year and for the next two years.

SAG-AFTRA and NBCUniversal are raising the stakes in their battle for unionization of Spanish-language performers on its Telemundo productions. The performers union accused NBCUniversal of operating with a double standard between Spanish-language and English-language talent hired for productions under the same parent corporation.

Labor unions are claiming KGW Portland owner Tegna is looking to bust up the NBC affiliate’s unions in order to replace union workers with cheaper help — and that they are currently fighting for their lives. In bargaining with the station’s four unions, Tegna is pushing to get rid of the clause on union jurisdiction.

The Italian-American automaker confirmed it had reached a new tentative agreement with the United Auto Workers union. Local union leaders will vote on the proposed deal Friday at a meeting in Detroit. If the leaders approve the tentative agreement, UAW will release details and the ratification process will begin, a UAW spokesman said.

The union is seeking additional security measures for the protection of reporting teams in the aftermath of attacks on TV news teams covering a shooting death in San Francisco last week.

n June 23, James Dolan’s cable giant finally answers allegations that it strong-armed employees during a bruising, three-year tangle with the communication workers’ union.

On-air reporters and anchors as well as photographers at Fox affiliate WTIC Hartford, Conn., will decide on Feb. 18 whether they want the National Association of Broadcast Employees & Technicians-Communications Workers of America to represent them, a union official says.The union representation vote will involve 53 employees, Carrie Biggs-Adams, NABET-CWA staff representative, said.