Ryan Binkley, the head of the group that owns the Anchorage Daily News, has rejected newsroom workers’ request to voluntarily recognize their union.
Newsroom employees announced their plans to form the Anchorage News Guild to bargain for contracts that include better pay, transparency and a more sustainable workload. It would be the first newsroom union in Alaska and follows a recent push for unionizing newsrooms.
The group filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board and would be a part of TheNewsGuild-CWA, which represents more than 25,000 newsroom employees.
A copy of Binkley’s letter was provided to The Alaska Current, which states, “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.”
In a statement, the Anchorage News Guild noted that 16 of the 20 newsroom employees eligible for the union have publicly supported the union and filed union cards with the NLRB. The group continued to say it sought voluntary recognition to kick off contract negotiations sooner, especially around stagnant wages.
“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,” says the group’s statement. “Their decision fails to honor the voice of the hard-working staff of the AND newsroom.”
The statement concludes by noting that the ADN management has hired the law firm Littler Mendelson, which the group says is “notoriously anti-union.” That might be putting it lightly, as the firm has spearheaded union-busting efforts for Starbucks, Amazon, and even Alaska, where it was involved in the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council’s efforts to stop and delay its employees from unionizing.
The legal fight for SEACC employees dragged out for eight months before the NLRB ruled that employees did, in fact, have the right to vote on a union. The process, however, soured so many who had worked to unionize that they voted and then left the nonprofit behind. A statement posted by the nonprofit’s board of directors blames the NLRB, unions and the employees themselves, claiming that unionization would have given the AFL-CIO control over the non-profit (it wouldn’t), and then blames them for “significant impacts on our remaining seven employees’ morale and capacity.”
In an op-ed last year, Alaska AFL-CIO President Joelle Hall said it was a consequence of the group’s actions under Littler Mendelson.
“After subjecting your employees to eight months of gaslighting, dilatory tactics, professional pressure, and anti-union misinformation, no one should be surprised that your employees attempting to form a union all voted ‘yes’ and then subsequently left for greener pastures. Who can blame them?” she wrote. “You had clearly indicated at every step, from hiring the nation’s preeminent union avoidance law firm to refusing to voluntarily recognize, that you would continue to make the process as cumbersome and uncomfortable as possible.”
Members of the Anchorage News Guild are asking the public to sign a petition supporting their efforts to unionize.
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Twitter.
