Newsroom workers at The Salt Lake Tribune have voted to seek union representation and have received word from the newspaper’s management that it will voluntarily recognize those efforts. In July, a “supermajority” of the publication’s reporters, photographers, web designers and artists organized the Salt Lake News Guild to represent their interests in negotiating a labor contract.
Labor laws allow for ownership and management to simply recognize the union organization and proceed to negotiate with it to draft a labor contract. Tribune CEO and Executive Editor Lauren Gustus notified the guild that the paper will recognize it as representing the workers and proceed to contract negotiations, thus avoiding a National Labor Relations Board polling of the employees.
The Salt Lake News Guild, consisting of “more than 70 percent” of Tribune news staff members, has affiliated with the Denver Newspaper Guild and the Communications Workers of America unions and are being advised by them.
“The Salt Lake Tribune has been an essential news source in Utah for more than 150 years,” said Jeff Dempsey, an audience manager at the Tribune and one of the organizers of the guild. “Our goal with the union is to work in equal partnership with management to ensure it remains essential for the next 150 years and beyond.”
“This is a watershed moment for the Tribune and its employees,” members of the guild organizing committee said in a statement responding to the paper’s acceptance of the guild as representing the workers. “As a nonprofit newsroom, our first commitment is to informing our community. The journalists and production team are the lifeblood of the Tribune and there is no question that readers will benefit when we are organized and our work is respected and valued.”
“We are grateful that Tribune CEO Lauren Gustus and the board of directors recognized our crucial contributions to the Tribune and our service to the community and we are excited to be a partner in making our already essential publication even better,” the committee said.
In their original letter to Tribune management seeking recognition, Salt Lake News Guild organizers expressed concern on a number of issues, most notably the pressure from management to generate “page views” for the online edition of the paper.
“Ultimately, the Tribune’s newsroom workers produce the journalism that compels donors, subscribers and advertisers to offer monetary support,” the letter said. “We inform the public, offer nuance to Utah’s civil discourse, serve as watchdogs over those in power, explore the beauty of our state, inspire readers and amplify voices of the marginalized.”
Despite what they consider to be excellent journalism, the union organizers feel they have little impact on the number of viewers the Tribune’s website generates.
“But tying professional performance to metrics, over which we have limited influence, results in adverse returns. It fishes for eyeballs beyond Utah’s borders, sullies our brand and disincentivizes meaningful journalism that serves our true audience,” the letter continued. “We are deeply concerned about journalists who have lost their jobs, at least in part, over page-view quotas largely beyond their control, and others who have quit or considered quitting due to burnout.”
Tribune management and guild representatives will now proceed to contract negotiations, which typically take several months.
“Gaining recognition is a first step, but it is a critical one,” the guild committee said. “The credit goes to all of our colleagues who banded together and pledged to support each other to make the Tribune an even stronger, more vibrant and invaluable Utah institution.”