Negotiations for a 2018 wage re-opener covering 13 bargaining units will open soon as Digital First Media ordered a new wave of staff cuts throughout California and in suburban Philadelphia in January. In response, DFM workers are escalating their contract campaign against Alden Global Capital, the New York hedge fund that owns DFM and that has been systematically stripping newspaper assets since 2012.
Read More
Let’s visit the DFM bosses. Invest in employees. Raise our pay. Now.
Read More
A broad coalition of 1,500 unionized news workers will conduct a joint day of action on May 3 — World Press Freedom Day — as part of a national campaign to protest the corporate-led assault on quality journalism. The coordinated effort by NewsGuild members will span 29 newspapers owned by GateHouse Media and Digital First Media. It will support the fight for quality journalism at those papers and highlight the damage wrought by draconian cuts in their newsrooms and other departments.
Read More
Thirteen Guild-CWA bargaining units representing newsroom, advertising, circulation, and production departments at Digital First Media opened joint negotiations for a wage increase Thursday in Denver. Union negotiators proposed a $1 per hour raise for all employees effective July 1. Management offered no proposal, stating that budgeting is under way for the next fiscal year that begins July 1, and that managers won’t be prepared to begin serious negotiations until June.
Read More
Representatives of the 12 Digital First Media Guild bargaining units met jointly with DFM management in Denver this week in an effort to reach agreement on all DFM contracts.
Read More
Nearly 1,000 news workers at Digital First Media have launched a nationwide revolt against job cuts and profiteering they say are threatening local journalism at the nation’s second-largest newspaper company.
Read More
Investigative reporter Thomas Peele once believed that supporting union efforts posed a conflict of interest to reporters. In this moving essay comparing his hardworking father’s life to his own, Peele reexamines that view.
Read More
Guild members and staff met for a third time with DFM management today to discuss the company’s proposal to merge the BANG and Mercury News contracts. We opted to suspend these talks and return to bargaining each contract separately. Once again, the Company had no pay proposal for workers who would be covered by the merged contract, and the Company also continued to propose that advertising employees would lose union protection.
Read More
Nearly 1,000 employees at a dozen DFM papers have gone years without raises — in some cases, a decade — while many have had to live with actual cuts in earnings and benefits.
Read More
Guild negotiators from the BANG-East Bay and San Jose Mercury News met with Digital First Media management in a joint session to discuss the company’s proposed consolidation of the two bargaining units.
Read More
Today is the launch of a national, coordinated campaign to win fair contracts with wage increases for the nearly 1,000 Guild-represented employees of Digital First Media.
Read More
DFM management proposed to merge the separate San Jose and East Bay Guild bargaining units under one consolidated contract that would include all digital employees, who are not currently represented by the Guild.
Read More
Members of the Mercury News Guild ratified a three-month contract extension Wednesday.
Under the terms of the extension, employees will receive a half day of paid leave, in addition to the two days of paid leave negotiated under the terms of our current contract, which is scheduled to expire June 30.
Location and timing is everything for local journalism as it is for real estate. The San Mateo Times adhered to that principle for decades. And it proved quite profitable.
Read MoreThe Guild has launched an effort to find or build community-based enterprises to free news organizations from the grip of the Digital First Media hedge fund.
Read More