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August 8, 2024

Hearst CT media staff announce unionization effort for better pay, working conditions

Archives Hearst CT Media Group offices
By Skyler Frazer

Staff at Hearst Connecticut Media Group, publisher of eight daily and 13 weekly newspapers around the state, announced Thursday they are working to form a union.

The group — composed of reporters, photographers, editors and digital producers at Hearst — said 92 members of its 110-person unit have signed union cards with NewsGuild-CWA. NewGuild-CWA represents more than 25,000 journalists in the U.S. and Canada, and is the largest union of communications employees in North America, according to union representatives.

The Hearst CT staff members said they presented management with a mission statement and asked the company to voluntarily recognize the union.

The statement said guild members believe they deserve a say in newsroom decisions, such as artificial intelligence implementation, work-from-home policies and benefits, and “deserve pay that keeps up with inflation and meets the significant cost of living in our communities.”

“As Hearst acquires more and more papers in Connecticut, it becomes more and more important that they are treating their employees right and doing right by their readers,” said Alex Putterman, a reporter at Hearst CT who is part of the organizing committee.

Putterman, along with other Herast CT staffers who signed union cards, was on staff at the Hartford Courant when the Courant’s newsroom formed a union in 2019. In June, the Hartford Courant Guild announced that it ratified its first union contract that included guaranteed raises and other employment protections.

Hearst Newspaper Group has been steadily growing in Connecticut for more than a decade, acquiring last year both the Journal Inquirer in Manchester and Meriden-based Record Journal. Putterman said the company’s investment in Connecticut hasn’t always been felt in the newsroom: many Hearst CT employees make around $50,000 a year, and in some cases less.

“Depending on what community you live in, that is probably just not going to be enough. The idea that reporters can't afford to live in the communities that they report on, I think, is pretty jarring,” Putterman said. “Connecticut is one of the more expensive places to live in the country, and particularly in the heart of Hearst’s territory in Fairfield County.”

After being ratified as a union, Putterman said the group plans to request pay data for employees to better assess the salary and benefits breakdown.

NewsGuild-CWA is a division of the Communications Workers of America, which has about 700,000 members in telecommunications and information technology, the airline industry, broadcast and cable television, health care, public service and education, law enforcement, manufacturing and other sectors.

A request for comment from Hearst CT media management wasn’t immediately returned.

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