San Francisco-Area Online Journalists Join The Newspaper Guild-CWA

Workers at a San Francisco Bay Area news website have voted to join TNG-CWA, illustrating how The Newspaper Guild is evolving to serve media workers in today's ever-changing industry.

The Bay Citizen, formed in 2010 as a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization with a staff of award-winning journalists, is one of the trailblazers in the movement to organize news websites. Truthout and The Daily Beast employees are also Guild-represented.

"We believe The Bay Citizen, as one of the pioneering exponents of new civic journalism, should also be a leading example in the area of workplace democracy," the website's 14-member editorial staff wrote in a letter to its company president prior to filing authorization cards with the National Labor Relations Board, which led to an election last month.

Online journalists at The Bay Citizen in San Francisco have joined TNG-CWA.

TNG-CWA President Bernie Lunzer said the result is an historic advance for media workers, as traditional newsrooms shrink and the industry struggles to find new models to stay competitive in the online era.

"The future of quality journalism depends on reporters and editors shaping the vision of innovative new media organizations. By voting to be represented by the Guild, employees at The Bay Citizen have given themselves this voice," Lunzer said.

Journalists at The New York Times, represented by TNG-CWA, and KGO radio NABET-CWA members, supported the organizing drive. Both newsrooms have agreements to obtain local news content from The Bay Citizen.

"For more than a year, journalists from The Bay Citizen have provided important coverage for the pages and website of The New York Times, and these talented journalists are an asset to the Guild at an important time, " said the Times' Grant Glickson, a Guild unit chair.