Gannett journalists today announced that they would be holding a wave of nationwide strikes starting on June 5, the day of Gannett’s annual shareholder meeting. Hundreds of union journalists in two dozen newsrooms from California to New York are expected to take part to demand that Gannett get serious about reinvesting in local news, in the largest collective action that Gannett employees have taken to date.
Journalists will take one-day walkouts on the day of the meeting, with some newsrooms walking off the job for two days or more. The Gannett publications participating will come from more than half a dozen states, including California, Arizona, Texas, Indiana, Florida, New Jersey and New York.
The NewsGuild-CWA represents more than 50 Gannett bargaining units, covering more than 1,000 employees.
Striking workers are calling on shareholders to withhold their vote on Gannett Co., Inc. Board Chairman and CEO Mike Reed at the June 5 meeting. Under Reed’s stewardship of the company following the merger of GateHouse Media and Gannett Media in November 2019, newsrooms have been hollowed out, local news coverage has dwindled, and Gannett share prices have fallen nearly 70% — far more than peers in the industry like The New York Times and Lee Enterprises.
The Austin NewsGuild is striking June 5 to advocate for fair pay for Austin American-Statesman newsroom employees and to protect the 152-year-old publication covering Texas’ capital.
Union members will gather Monday, June 5, at 11 a.m. at the Congress Avenue Bridge in front of the old site of the American-Statesman, 305 S. Congress Avenue, to publicly picket.
Members of the NewsGuild will not write, photograph, edit or design for the newspaper we love on June 5 to send a message to Gannett, the parent company of the American-Statesman. Without us, there is no Statesman. It’s past time Gannett leadership understood the real value of the company is in its employees and compensated workers as such.
The American-Statesman’s Austin NewsGuild is one of more than a dozen Gannett guilds across the country that will be on strike on June 5, which is the date of Gannett’s annual shareholder meeting. Together the guilds are asking for Gannett to invest in its newsrooms and local journalism.
At Gannett’s annual shareholder meeting, the company will once again discuss the importance of local journalism. If the company truly believes this, they should bargain in good faith.
We also stand with NewsGuild and our sibling Gannett unions urging shareholders to issue a vote of no confidence in Gannett CEO Mike Reed.
The effects of Gannett’s leadership are clear. The company took over the Austin American-Statesman in 2019 after it merged with Gatehouse, which bought the Statesman in 2018. In 2018, the American-Statesman had 110 newsroom members on staff. Now, in 2023, the paper has 44 newsroom staff members. Since the beginning of 2021, 41 staffers have left the Statesman. Along with the newsroom, the size of the newspaper has also shrunk. A spot evaluation of the paper showed 30 local stories one April day in 2018 compared to nine on the same day in 2023.
The Austin NewsGuild’s asks are reasonable. The union wants a $60,000 wage floor for employees, who live in a city where average home price is $625,575. Earlier this year, management at the Dallas Morning News agreed to a $55,000 wage floor for union members and management at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram agreed to a $52,000 wage floor. Average home price in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex is $484,603.
Gannett must invest in its employees to save the future of the American-Statesman. The guild has been negotiating for two years with the company, and we urge the company to stop stalling and work with union members toward a reasonable and fair contract.
To help ensure our journalists are paid during our walkout Austin NewsGuild has set up a GoFundMe — Austin American-Statesman NewsGuild Strike Fund (gofundme.com)
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