In what’s believed to be a first in Chicago newspaper history, reporters and other newsroom staffers at the Chicago Tribune plan to go on strike Thursday, joining hundreds of other Tribune Publishing employees in a nationwide action after years of contract negotiations.
More than 200 journalists and production workers at seven newsrooms across the country are participating in the 24-hour strike to demand that management pay fair wages and not eliminate their 401(k) match benefits, according to a news release from The NewsGuild-CWA, which represents the employees.
“Tomorrow’s walkout is the single largest coordinated action journalists at the company have taken against Alden Global Capital since the hedge fund purchased Tribune Publishing in 2021, in a deal that saddled Tribune Publishing with $278 million in debt,” the union said in a statement.
Despite Chicago’s reputation as a two-fisted newspaper city, experts say it will mark the first time editorial employees have walked out at one of the major daily papers.
“There’s never been a newspaper strike in Chicago,” said Rob Warden, a longtime award-winning journalist who wrote for the Chicago Daily News and co-founded Injustice Watch. He called the walkout “unprecedented.”
“It’s never happened,” he said.
Tribune Publishing journalists have been negotiating for a contract through their bargaining units for as long as five years, the union said.
“Even before Alden purchased the company in 2021, Tribune Publishing had a long history of underpaying its workers,” the union said. “Most Tribune workers have not seen a pay raise since 2018.”
Caroline Kubzansky, a Chicago Tribune reporter and member of the contract action team, said it was “outrageous” that they have been without a contract for five years.
“We are going to keep fighting until we get a contract, and if this doesn’t move management, we are not going to be defeated,” Kubzansky said.
As for what Friday’s paper may look like due to the strike, Madeline Buckley, Chicago Tribune Guild chair, said in a text message, “We know any newspaper or content they produce with a shoestring staff of non-union workers will fall short of the content Chicago Tribune readers are accustomed to.
“This action will prove that our labor is indispensable to the company and is ultimately what brings in subscribers,” Buckley said.
Alden Global Capital has “slow-walked negotiations” and offered “non-starter” proposals, including eliminating the company’s 401(k) match, which could jeopardize workers’ ability to retire, the union said.
Alden has also refused to provide across-the-board pay increases, even though the cost of living in Chicago has increased by about 20% since 2020, according to the union.
“We didn’t go into this job for the money, but Alden’s cuts have hit so close to the bone that we can’t even do our jobs as journalists anymore. Enough is enough. Journalists deserve to be able to retire with dignity,” said Buckley, a criminal courts reporter.
“The company’s insulting proposals on wages and benefits puts our future at risk, along with our ability to continue to produce the hard-hitting journalism this city relies upon,” she said.
The union also accused the newspaper of failing to remedy wage inequities on race and gender lines.
“The company has also gutted newsrooms. At the company’s flagship property, the Chicago Tribune, staff has been cut from 111 to 76 since June 2021,” the union said. “Alden’s cuts have hurt journalists’ ability to provide quality public information and hold power to account.”
Unionized journalists at the paper have previously held collective actions to protest the company’s actions. In December, Chicago Tribune journalists and other employees held a protest at Tribune Tower.
“Many of our colleagues take on second jobs or leave journalism simply to make ends meet,” said Dave Mulcahey, a Tribune Content Agency business editor. “No media outlet that cares about the quality of its product would pay its staff in this way.”
Tribune Publishing did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Tribune newsroom is relatively new to union representation, with employees only deciding to join the Guild in 2018.
But it’s no stranger to labor strife. Three production unions struck the Tribune in 1985. The walkout by roughly 1,000 members of the Typographical Union. the Mailers Union and the Web Printing Pressmen’s Union initially forced the newspaper to reduce the number of editions amd their size.
That bitter dispute — which included “Lou Grant” actor Ed Asner taking a stint on the picket line — dragged on for more than four and half years with court battles between the newspaper and some of the unions.
The Chicago Sun-Times has a long history of guild representation, as did the now-defunct Chicago Daily News. Over the years, both newspapers have come close to strikes, with reporters, photographers and other newsroom workers occasionally donning their coats as they stood in the newsroom awaiting a settlement. But the two papers always managed to avoid strikes.
But given the challenges now facing media outlets, newsroom strikes are not as rare as they once were. Earlier this month, more than 300 unionized Los Angeles Times employees held a one-day walkout in a number of cities in protest of management plans for deep layoffs of journalists.
In Chicago, Warden says that given Alden’s focus on slashing costs, he isn’t completely surprised that the Tribune newsroom employees are taking this step.
“I’m fully aware of the reputation of the current owners, so in that sense it’s really not surprising that they’re trying to squeeze every dime out of it that they can,” Warden said. “It will only work to the further detriment of the editorial product.”
Alan Mutter, a San Francisco-based media analyst and former Sun-Times city editor, said the strike is “a primal scream on the part of journalists who can’t figure out what to do about the continuous cutbacks that they’ve seen in their publication.”
Mutter noted the strike comes as other news organizations such as Time and Forbes, in addition to the Los Angeles Times, have announced layoffs in their newsrooms, painting a bleak picture for the future of journalism.
“The problem is that the economics of the media business have deteriorated significantly because of the loss of print advertising, the loss of print readers, the shifting of audience away from traditional news media into social media,” Mutter said.
Newspapers and others media organizations have tried to offset those losses by focusing on digital subscriptions, Mutter said, but they have so far been unable to replace lost revenue through that strategy.
Chicago is fortunate to have two competing companies in the Sun-Times and the Tribune, he said.
“When journalism goes away, good civic behavior goes away, and that is a great concern for our country,” Mutter said.
Editors Note: This story was updated after publication to include information on the 1985 strike by production workers against the Tribune.
