Fortune Finds a Way…and a Contract

Last week, members of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild (TNG-CWA Local 37082) ratified a 2-year first contract with the Anchorage Daily News. This marks the first union contract at an Alaska news publication.

The contract guarantees minimum salaries, salary increases tied to company revenue, and workplace protections for journalists. Union members include reporters, photojournalists, copy editors, online producers, web developers, and graphic designers.

“I’m grateful to my colleagues and to management that we were able to come together, bargain in good faith, and work towards a contract reflecting both our aspirations for the organization as well as the realities facing it. It’s a hard time for journalism,” said reporter Zachariah Hughes.

Click here to read more about this historic contract.

The news from Anchorage came only weeks after another NewsGuild-CWA first at the New York financial magazine, Fortune, where members of the Fortune Union (NewsGuild-CWA Local 31003) ratified their first union contract earlier this week. The contract covers both digital and print employees and lifts wages a total of 11 percent for the life of the deal, sets new salary standards, provides job security protections, and more.

“We are so excited to finally have a fair contract after a long battle,” said Sasha Rogelberg, Fortune Union’s unit chair. “Our union has repeatedly come together in tough times—including after a mass layoff over the summer reduced our unit size by one-third—to fight for the well-being of our newsroom. The efforts to secure this contract were no exception.”

The contract is the culmination of a multiyear campaign, which includes a 24-hour work stoppage in March 2021, a conference strike threat in August 2021, and a September 2023 lunch-out, among other collective actions.

You can read more about this contract here.

Congratulations to our members at the Anchorage Daily News and Fortune magazine!

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This post originally appeared on cwa-union.org.