Roanoke Times union election set for April 27
For Immediate Release: April 13, 2020
Contact: (540) 339-7635
ROANOKE, Va. — The Timesland News Guild, representing journalists and staff at The Roanoke Times and Laker Weekly, is seeking certification through a union election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board.
The NLRB began mailing ballots on April 10 to more than 50 staff members who qualify for guild membership. Ballots must arrive at the NLRB’s Winston-Salem, North Carolina, office by April 24 and will be counted on April 27. The election will be monitored by representatives from Roanoke Times parent company Lee Enterprises and the guild via video conference.
Members of the Timesland News Guild are prepared to win this election by an overwhelming majority of votes. The guild was formed on March 17 after more than 80 percent of eligible employees signed union authorization cards saying they want a seat at the table where decisions that affect readers and Times staff are made.
Last month the NLRB suspended union certification elections because of COVID-19 concerns. Despite broad newsroom and community support and repeated pleas from subscribers, former employees and guild members, Iowa-based Lee Enterprises refused to voluntarily recognize Timesland News Guild. Voluntary recognition would have allowed the Timesland News Guild to begin bargaining with the company over working conditions, including over recent furloughs.
The NLRB recommenced elections on April 6, but not before Lee announced mandatory newsroom furloughs in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. All employees, including reporters, photographers, designers, digital editors and support staff will be out of work for two weeks over the next three months, crippling their personal finances and the Times’ ability to provide life-saving information to the communities we serve.
Because Timesland News Guild had not yet been certified by an election, it had no power to negotiate the terms of the furloughs, as other unionized Lee papers were entitled to do. After April 27, the guild will have the power to fight for the interests of Times readers and employees.
“It’s truly a shame that rather than voluntarily recognize the guild, Lee Enterprises has forced its newsroom to conduct an election in the middle of a worldwide pandemic that has already killed at least 75 Virginians and sickened more than 3,600,” said Tonia Moxley, a 20-year veteran Times reporter. “But I am confident we will win an overwhelming majority, and this will empower us to be a strong voice for readers whose access to life-saving information has been crippled by Lee-mandated newsroom furloughs, and for our coworkers, whose financial stability has been compromised during this crisis.”
“After six years of proudly working for this newspaper, I will be voting this week in favor of bringing the NewsGuild to The Roanoke Times,” politics reporter Amy Friedenberger said. “A painful emotional journey led me to this decision. My faith in management eroded over the years, and I’m not optimistic improvement will happen without a union. I believe that organizing is the best way to deal with our ownership.”
“Employee empowerment is our last, best hope for strengthening local news,” said Jeff Sturgeon, a 25-year veteran of The Roanoke Times. “Management has had total control forever, and now we're at least going to be part of the conversation on how to run this paper.”
The Timesland News Guild derives its name from a term coined by The Roanoke Times sports department in the 1950s to describe the areas across Southwest Virginia that depend on our coverage. The union seeks to work with local management to strengthen The Roanoke Times. A union can hold company leaders accountable to the high journalistic standards readers deserve, advocate for the restoration of jobs and beats that serve the community, and negotiate for fair pay and employment practices.
Timesland News Guild is a unit of the Washington-Baltimore News Guild Local 32035 of The NewsGuild, a sector of the Communications Workers of America (CWA).
### About The Roanoke Times: Serving Roanoke and Southwest Virginia since its founding in 1886 by M.H. Claytor, The Roanoke Times publishes a daily print and online newspaper to about 35,000 print subscribers and more than 40,000 daily digital readers. Widely recognized for hard-hitting investigative stories on subprime lending, urban renewal, segregation, poverty, immigration and government corruption, the paper has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist three times. In the mid-2000s, The Roanoke Times was ranked as the best-read newspaper of its size in the country, according to market research firm Scarborough. It remains the largest professional news outlet in Southwest Virginia, employing roughly 50 journalists.
### About The NewsGuild-Communications Workers of America: The NewsGuild-CWA represents more than 24,000 journalists and other media workers in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico, including The Charlottesville Daily Progress, The Virginian-Pilot, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Reuters, The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune.
