Statesman Union Gearing Up to Strike
Gannett still won’t budge on wages, benefits
By Lina Fisher, Fri., Jan. 12, 2024
Statesman staff are gearing up to strike in the coming weeks, as negotiations on wages and benefits have continued to stall since journalists voted to unionize in 2021. Nicole Villalpando, leader of the Austin NewsGuild, said, "No one wants to strike. We want to work, but the strike will happen if we cannot get Gannett to come to the table with serious terms. So far, what they've offered us is just terrible."
On X, formerly Twitter, the union is posting ads about a forthcoming strike and asking for financial support to get staff through it. Their strike fund on GoFundMe has so far raised $22,480.
After their last one-day strike June 5, they made some gains on safety for journalists, said Villalpando. They're now more free to refuse an assignment that puts them at risk or to ask for a buddy. Where they're far apart is on wages and benefits. Gannett is offering a minimum salary of $48,000 a year; journalists are asking for $60,000. "We just want everybody on staff to be able to live in the community that they cover," said Cat Vasquez, currently on the sports bridge desk, which is at risk of being eliminated. "It's not a radical idea. We want people that work 40 hours a week to be able to pay rent and buy food."
Villalpando said low pay is partly at fault for the newsroom having lost 25% of its staff in the last three years, with 77% turnover. Wages are stagnating: about a fifth of the newsroom hasn't had a raise since 2017, and Gannett has offered guaranteed raises only at years 6 and 15. "That is a very long time to wait," said Villalpando. Benefits are another sticking point – Gannett is offering "same as" benefits, meaning the same across all the company's papers, which means for Villalpando that "my family of four would cost me $2,400 more a year than what I'm currently paying in health care benefits, and it would mean that none of us would have a 401(k) match. It would mean that at any point in time, they could change our benefits and we would not have any control over that. That is a big deal-breaker right now." The union also wants a say in what layoffs and severance look like, as Villalpando said there is a culture of favoritism in the current discretionary system: "Seniority would actually matter. They just want to be able to lay off whoever they feel like."
She said these conditions are discouraging new journalists from staying for long, which hurts the quality of coverage: "You have people covering really important things who just moved to Texas. They've lost their mentors, and their editors are also new. The community is hurt by Gannett not investing in the quality of stories they could have if we kept our journalists here, if Austin wasn't seen as a stepping stone, but as a final destination, which it used to be."
Villalpando said about half of the newsroom staff are new hires, who leave after a year or so because of the poor wages. "It takes at least a year to get up to speed on a new position. These are people who have college degrees, they've done internships with ABC, USA Today – they have lots of really great experience, and yet they can't afford to live on their own. And when they leave the Statesman, they're making 30%, 40% more."
Aside from massive turnover, some positions are at risk of being axed: Vasquez said losing his desk "would pretty much eliminate any kind of copy editing on our local stories. ... It's just unacceptable." Villalpando said another priority in negotiation is to avoid AI replacement: "AI has a place in data and gathering information, but it does not have a place in writing stories. Gannett has gotten in trouble with AI-written stories that have appeared in other papers and we're trying to avoid that."
Villalpando said they want a contract that is competitive with the Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, San Antonio Express-News, and others. Otherwise, said Vasquez, "when you lose a voice you can trust locally, any community is going to be hurt by that."
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