Staff at the state’s largest newspaper company, Hearst Connecticut Media Group, have voted to form a union, some nine months after starting an organizing drive.
Leaders of the Connecticut News Guild say of 85 ballots counted, 80% voted in favor of unionization. The vote included reporters, photographers, editors and digital producers.
“With this display of solidarity and hope for the future of local journalism, we’re excited to begin bargaining a contract together that improves working conditions for all of us and future HCMG journalists,” the Guild said in a press release announcing the vote.
In April, organizers won a ruling from the National Labor Relations Board that they could proceed to an election to become part of the News Guild-CWA.
The company had argued to the NLRB that the petitioning workers were not one bargaining unit, but should be divided into five separate units based on the geography of Hearst’s newsrooms, but the board disagreed.
The union now says that Hearst is continuing to challenge the eligibility of 18 people to be included in the Connecticut News Guild bargaining unit.
Hearst has been growing rapidly in Connecticut, most recently acquiring the Waterbury Republican-American in February of this year.
It also owns daily newspapers in Stamford, Norwalk, Greenwich, Danbury, Bridgeport, New Haven and Middletown, and recently acquired the Journal Inquirer of Manchester and Record Journal of Meriden.
Union organizers say the growth and consolidation of the group has led to shifting job responsibilities for staff and requirements that they report to offices that are distant from the communities they cover. They also say that wages have not kept pace with inflation.
Hearst Connecticut Media Group declined to comment on the vote.
