The owners of the Anchorage Daily News were invited by unionizing reporters to recognize the Anchorage News Guild as the legal labor negotiating entity representing the newsroom at the daily paper, which now only publishes in newsprint twice a week.
ADN owner Ryan Binkley said “no.”
That means the election at the new union will go forward for the 16 or so employees of the newsroom who signed union authorization cards for the newly forming Anchorage News Guild. Those who wish to support the journalists in organizing a union can sign the petition here.
“As the representation petition Anchorage News Guild filed with the National Labor Relations Board requests, we believe the employees should have an opportunity to decide whether they wish to be represented by the Anchorage News Guild in a free and fair secret ballot election conducted by the NLRB,” Binkley wrote in a letter to staff on Thursday, according to the letter that the union organizers publicized.
The reporters want higher pay and believe that unionizing will bring that to them.
“The decision by ADN management not to grant voluntary recognition of the Anchorage News Guild delays the beginning of contract negotiations that newsroom employees have said are critical to guarantee equitable, sustainable wages moving forward,” the guild said in a statement. “Their decision fails to honor the voices of the hard-working staff of the ADN newsroom.”
The guild members believe they will succeed and will organize under a national union, NewsGuild-CWA, which represents 25,000 media professionals at over 40 publications.
The local guild reports that the newspaper has hired a Seattle law firm that represents Starbucks and other companies that face unionizing.
“ADN management has also hired an attorney from Littler Mendelson, a notoriously anti-union law firm,” the union said, adding that the money would be “better spent investing in our newsroom and our community.”
We all know the Daily News is a failing institution. Reporters demanding higher pay will only speed up the demise of the paper. The reporters may be thinking that they are securing their jobs but if no one reads the paper, or pays for it, then there will be no jobs.
What good is higher pay going to do when you now have to pay union dues?
Ben, newly recognized unions typically negotiate higher pay raises and benefits than the union dues by a large margin. Unionizing ADN will drive the cost of the paper and access to their web articles up, and then some loss of readership will occur due to cost.
Are unions worth it? I like collective bargaining and structured discipline and grievance. I hate union politics and thuggery. The choice will vary with each situation. Greed from all sides seems to be the root of the issue.
How can a business deflect unionization? By respecting their employees enough to pay them well and treat them fairly while including them in the business’ financial reporting so they can see how they fit in and where the business is headed. Yeah, I know, I’m stirring up a hornets nest… But I’ve been in business for myself and in management for others. Treat ’em right and listen to them and they won’t go trolling for union help.
All the union will do is get them some sort of buyout when the paper closes.
I am so BUMMED that Binkley said, “No.” He should have eagerly accepted his socialist brothers an sisters, thereby driving up costs as the “newspaper” and driving down productivity. It would have hastened the demise of this propaganda-spewing rag.
Yes I wanted a quicker demise also.
Look at the unions and prices now and before.
The decline and fall of America’s mainstream media continues. The journalists must be quite detached from reality to believe fee-based media has any hope of surviving the relentless transition to electronic, no-fee, platforms.
Awesome and hilarious. Marxists/socialists/communists (aka leftists) – always good for thee but not for me.
The consumption continues right to the bitter end, time and time again throughout history, cyclic and predictable.
The ride will get more wild and more violent as time continues unrelentingly.
Another reason to just say no to ADN.
How can you recognize that particular union when you employee zero of whom the union is to represent
Here in Ketchikan, while a nice group of folks, the paper is contracted to the Associated Press for their
paper column filling. As a result, the bent of the news is bias toward the liberals point of view and the content is personal opinion over actual reporting. Will not read any article that has two or more bylines and then rare is the read of even a single byline. Hence, the limited local news,comics and classifieds. Told the owner years back that I take the paper only because I have a wood stove and parrot, both need paper. Recently I had opportunity to inform the owners that I installed electric heat pumps and the parrot died.
Cheers,
LOL.
You are correct sir. It didn’t HAVE to be this way. They need not have pursued the covered wagons. Regardless, here we are. News’ impermanence will continue to intensify. Winston Smith will not need to wrangle with pesky newsprint.
In a short time, the ADN will be reduced down to publishing the funnies once a week. A fitting end and symbolic closure to the left-wing, hate-spewing propoganda rag in Alaska’s largest city.
A great example of, “Do as say, not as I do”! LMAO!
Dont be too hasty to get rid of the old yellow ADN newspaper boxes.
They are very useful in neighborhoods for pet owners who use the roads for walking with their pets.
Just use a marker pen to relabel them as “dog poop litter” so pedestrians wont have to carry the poop home or leave it on the roadside.
Hopefully in the near future people will identify the yellow boxes as Alaska Dog waste.
Just another unit of the Propaganda Corps.
Lol, all they do is copy and paste cnn,abc, associated press and other rags. And they want a raise!?!? Try creating something losers.
I wish they’d wrote more about fish and game and Alaskan Resources . Both major print papers in Alaska are terrible to say the least . I know why Rogoff purchased ADN , to propagate for the left . It appears the Binkleys bought for what reason ?
I’d love to own the NewsMiner and write about what’s important to the interior residents . Mining , natural resources and some of the struggles living just south of Arctic circle . The outfit out of SF owns the NewsMiner . It’s lousy narrative pushing the lefts ideology . Not what living in Fbks is about .
The irony of the Left is, well, ironic. How’s that Marxist ideology thing working out for you “reporters” at that twice-a-week left-wing rag? I quit subscribing 20 years ago and only my wood stove noticed the difference.
Comments are closed.