By: Mark Fitzgerald Editorial Workers At Gay Paper Wanted Guild
With a 10-8 vote Friday, employees at The Washington Blade
rejected the first-ever effort to unionize the staff of a gay-
oriented weekly newspaper.
"We're grateful for the vote of confidence and are extremely
pleased that a majority of employees supported management despite
the short amount of time we've had to get to know one another,"
William Waybourn, president of Window Media LLC, publisher of the
Blade, said in a statement. "With the vote behind us, we
can once again devote all our efforts to publishing the nation's
best lesbian and gay newspaper."
Calvin Zon, an organizer with the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper
Guild Local 32035, said all eight editorial employees at the
paper voted for the union in the election supervised by the
National Labor Relations Board. "Our people there seem to think
the main argument that won the day was that Window Media had been
there for just a short time and hadn't been given sufficient time
to prove themselves," Zon said.
Atlanta-based Window Media bought the Washington Blade,
the nation's oldest gay paper, and New York Blade News,
from publisher Don Michaels in late May.
Mark Fitzgerald (mfitzgerald@editorandpublisher.com) is editor at large for E&P.
Related stories:
UNION EFFORT UNDER WAY AT 'WASHINGTON BLADE' (06/19/01)
GAY 'BLADE' NEWSPAPERS SOLD (03/23/01)
Copyright 2001, Editor & Publisher.
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