Journalists of The Roanoke Times win union election
For Immediate Release: April 28, 2020
Contact: (540) 339-7635
ROANOKE, Va. — Journalists of The Roanoke Times and Laker Weekly on Tuesday won a resounding victory in an election to form the Timesland News Guild union.
Newsroom employees voted 47-3 in favor of representing their interests, and the interests of the newspaper and community, through the Washington-Baltimore News Guild Local 32035 of The NewsGuild, a sector of the Communications Workers of America (CWA).
“Today, The Roanoke Times newsroom stood up, not just for each other, but for our readers. Coming together as Timesland News Guild will finally give us a voice in the decisions that affect one of our most important community institutions: local news,” said Tonia Moxley, a 20-year veteran reporter. “I’m so proud to work with this group of brave, self-sacrificing journalists and support staff. And I’m so grateful to our readers and subscribers for their support.”
Today’s union certification election was overseen by the National Labor Relations Board. Mail-in ballots were counted at 11 a.m. over Skype at the federal agency’s regional office in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The NLRB began mailing ballots on April 10 to more than 50 Roanoke Times newsroom employees who qualified for guild membership.
The Timesland News Guild will soon begin negotiations over working conditions with Iowa-based Lee Enterprises, which on March 16 bought The Roanoke Times, Laker Weekly and several other Virginia newspapers from Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Media Group. The Timesland News Guild announced on March 17 its intent to form a union after more than 80 percent of eligible employees signed union authorization cards.
Last month, the NLRB suspended elections because of COVID-19 concerns. Despite broad newsroom and community support, as well as repeated pleas from subscribers, former employees and guild members, Lee refused to voluntarily recognize the Timesland News Guild. Voluntary recognition would have allowed the guild to begin bargaining over working conditions.
The NLRB recommenced elections on April 6, but not before Lee announced mandatory newsroom furloughs, due to the economic fallout from COVID-19. 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 it serves. Because the Timesland News Guild had not yet been certified by an election, it had no power to negotiate any terms of the furloughs, as other unionized Lee papers were entitled to do.
“The overwhelming vote in favor of unionizing is a win, not just for Roanoke Times journalists, but for our community and readers, too,” said Casey Fabris, a business reporter who joined the Times in 2015. “With a seat at the table, we can work to protect and preserve local news, which The Roanoke Times has been dedicated to producing for 134 years.”
“Our union win is a win for all Southwest Virginians,” said Shawn Garrett, a graphic designer at the paper since 2015. “The Times might be owned by a company halfway across the country, but a union will help ensure that the paper will be made by people who live here, who love this region and know it deeply. In short, it will work to keep the local paper local.”
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 the paper’s coverage. The guild seeks to work with Lee to strengthen The Times, by holding leaders accountable to high journalistic standards that readers deserve; advocating for the restoration of jobs and beats that serve the community; and negotiating fair pay and employment practices.
### 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.
