Newspaper Unions in Texas Fight for First Contracts
In the notoriously anti-labor Lone Star State, three recently unionized newsrooms are fighting for their first collective bargaining agreements, the contracts that will determine their future working conditions. Often, this is a long and grueling process. At Texas’ three union newspapers, workers report that bargaining is taking dramatically different paths depending on who owns the outlet.
In July of 2020, journalists at the Dallas Morning News became the first to announce they were unionizing in Texas. They were followed by workers at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Austin American-Statesman. All decided to join the NewsGuild, part of a growing nationwide trend as journalists fought back against layoffs and corporate predation. There hadn’t been a union paper in Texas since the San Antonio Light shuttered in 1993.
The Morning News is owned by the DallasNews Corporation, formerly called the A.H. Belo Corporation, which owns no other papers outside Dallas and has been controlled by the same family since the 19th century. The paper has a long anti-labor history, including possibly coining the misleading term “right to work,” and management opposed the union effort last year. But, after workers voted in a landslide in October to unionize, the company has reportedly proved rather amenable at the bargaining table.
Since late last year, Morning News workers and management have been meeting about once a month, according to the chair of the union’s bargaining team, and the two sides have reached tentative agreements on almost all “non-economic” issues. That includes items such as protection against spontaneous or unjust firings and a requirement that more interviewees be from underrepresented groups. Things have moved quickly: “The company’s been like, ‘What do we have to do to get this finished today?’” says Leah Waters, a Morning News copy editor and the bargaining chair.
Read more: https://www.texasobserver.org/newspaper-unions-in-texas-fight-for-first-contracts/