Twenty-one unionized reporters from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram went on strike for 24 days, demanding that parent company McClatchy pay them a living wage. Today, they’re back at work.
McClatchy was purchased by the hedge fund Chatham Asset Management in July 2020 for $312 million. It owns 30 papers in 29 markets across the country. The Fort Worth NewsGuild’s strike appears to be the first time in modern Texas history that an organized newsroom walked out in protest of wages.
The guild has been negotiating a contract with the company for nearly two years, guild vice-president Kaley Johnson said. McClatchy’s base wage of $45,000 was only set for newsrooms without a union presence. Since the Star-Telegram newsroom voted to unionize, they were required to bargain for a contract that sets a base wage for the newsroom. The union asked for $57,500, citing its calculations for the cost of living in Fort Worth, and also worked to improve severance pay and sick leave policies.
The negotiations were contentious, judging from guild members’ Twitter updates. Earlier this month, Johnson tweeted that McClatchy was so far sticking with its $45,000 base wage but also reportedly had some proposals for family leave.
“…the company insists people should have less paid leave depending on how they gave birth. Meaning staff would have to tell the company whether they gave birth vaginally or via c-section,” she said, adding that the company would also limit leave for parents who do not give birth.
During the four-week strike, the guild was often joined or supported by fellow unions, including the Fort Worth Firefighters Association Local 440, which donated $10,000 to the guild’s strike fund. Local politicians like state representatives Chris Turner, Nicole Collier, and Ramon Romero also supported their efforts, as did Fort Worth City Councilman Chris Nettles and U.S. Rep Marc Veasey
The guild’s announcement today does not detail what in the contract brought them back to the Star-Telegram newsroom three days before Christmas. But it does hint that McClatchy may have budged on the annual base wage.
“Over the 4 weeks, we finally saw actual movement from the company on policies they have refused to budge on for 2 years,” the guild said in a tweet. “For the first time, the company moved from the unacceptable $45k minimum floor they have insisted on since day 1.”
Johnson says that the guild has a possible contract but hasn’t officially voted to ratify it yet.
“We returned because the basis of our strike was that the company was bargaining in bad faith by refusing to negotiate,” she said. “Over the 24 days of our strike, we saw more compromise and movement from the company than they gave in two years. We should not have had to strike for nearly four weeks to get the bare minimum from the company. As it stands, McClatchy made some movement on significant policies, but in other areas, upper management continued to deny equitable conditions. The fight is not over simply because we returned to work- we will continue to fight for better conditions as a union.”
In addition to the Star-Telegram newsroom, reporters at the Dallas Morning News and Al Dia as well as the Austin American-Statesman unionized as news guilds in the past two years. The Star-Telegram is owned by McClatchy, the Statesman by Gannett, and the Dallas Morning News and Al Dia are owned by DallasNews Corp. All three unions are in the process of negotiating contracts and all of them have cited pay issues as a major driver. They join 200 NewsGuilds across the country—many of which are new unions.
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