SoCal News Group Guild wins tentative agreement, lifts strike deadline

Election Day would be different for media workers at the Southern California News Group (SCNG) Guild if they hadn’t secured a tentative agreement with management on Oct. 30.

The guild had planned to strike starting Nov. 4 — the day before the election. Now, if approved by members, the guild will have its first contract since it unionized in June 2021, evading the first-ever open-ended strike at a newsroom owned by notorious hedge fund Alden Global Capital. 

“We want to see a presence of local media be something that’s long-term and not something that’s just going to get cut to pieces … and sold when it’s no longer valuable to a hedge fund,” SCNG reporter and guild contract actions team member Charlie Vargas told The Objective shortly after the strike vote. 

Over 90% of union members who participated in the strike authorization vote this September were in favor of beginning an open-ended strike, and had been working on raising strike funds before the agreement. 

“This TA isn’t perfect, but we’ve come a long way since we unionized three years ago,” guild leadership wrote on X, formerly Twitter. 

Among the tentative agreement’s provisions include a procedure for layoffs in inverse order of seniority (measured from when journalists started with their respective paper, not when Alden purchased them), guardrails for the use of artificial intelligence, and an average raise of 12% for union members over the next two years. 

The Objective reached out to SCNG for comment. 

Pay a long-time concern for union members

Earlier this month, Inland Empire MediaWatch reported that SCNG management, according to guild leaders, had offered a 4% raise over two years for employees making less than $46,000 and a $1,500 pre-tax bonus for those making more than that.

Vargas told The Objective that low pay is a major pressure point for the union’s organizing. 

In the last three years, he’s had three different editors, one of whom specifically left because “there was just more money in a different direction.” 

“It’s not just my editors that I’ve seen turn over, it’s been my colleagues, friends that I made here,” he said. “They just find different opportunities and do take them, or switch out of journalism altogether because they can’t afford to keep reporting at this company, or in general.” 

A 2022 compensation study from SCNG Guild found the majority of union members made salaries below $60,000, and race and gender pay gaps were evident: The median salary for men was $3,300 higher than for women, and white employees earned $5,700 more than non-white employees. Many reporters went years without cost-of-living adjustments. 

The union, which represents 125 journalists at 11 local newspapers across southern California, has been negotiating for its first contract for over two years. It’s also seen the acquisition of an additional paper to SCNG, as MediaNews Group purchased the San Diego Union-Tribune last year. 

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Related: ‘This is the Boogeyman’: San Diego Union-Tribune staff devastated by sale to hedge-fund-owned media group

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The group is a subsidiary of Alden Global Capital, which owns hundreds of publications across the U.S., has been known to gut papers and is among the nation’s largest newspaper chains. Alden’s been described as a “vulture,” picking apart newsrooms across the country and closing them to recoup its investments. The hedge fund purchased MediaNews Group in 2010. 

To Vargas, Alden Global Capital — not editors — are the target of the union’s ire. 

While it may be narratively easier to pit reporters and editors against each other, he said shortly after the strike authorization vote that both reporters and editors should be getting paid more. 

“The burnout there is real, too — it’s not just on the reporting end, it’s also seen on the editor end,” Vargas said. “I’d say there’s more tension there [with Alden] than with our immediate editors.” 

Union walked a rocky path to first agreement 

SCNG Guild faced adversity from the onset. When deciding who could be a member of the union, SoCal News Group appealed to block copy editors, graphic artists, page designers, and social media and digital producers from joining the union, but was unsuccessful — the National Labor Relations Board ruled in favor of SCNG Guild. 

SoCal News Group again appealed the result of the union’s vote in June 2021, but had their appeal denied in December of the same year.

From February 2022, Vargas said, there was little movement on economic proposals from the guild, “so the action started to get a little bit more escalatory.” 

That included a one-day walkout in December 2023. 

But right before that walkout, one of the managing editors emailed the members to offer a salary bump up to those making less than $46,000, and offered a $1,500 one-time bonus for workers being paid over that salary. 

“A lot of people were like, ‘That’s not what we’re asking for,’” Vargas recalled. 

So the walkout went through, and “energized” union members. 

“I think if you look at our coverage side-by-side with the front page, when we were there versus when we’re not there, you know, it’s just a wire story … it’s not locally covered,” he said. “So there was a substantial juxtaposition there in comparison.” 

Now, instead of being poised to strike next week, union members will soon vote on whether to ratify the contract. 

Vargas says ultimately, the strike — and efforts to secure the first contract — are to help “build a better and bigger backbone” for the future of newspaper journalism in Southern California. 

“We also care about the longevity of it, making sure that the people who come in after us have somewhere to go, that we have a presence in SoCal that encourages, you know, grads coming out of college or getting into journalism to have a space so that they can cover the communities that they grew up in,” he said.

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This story is a developing story and will continue to be updated. Edits by Gabe Schneider.

James Salanga is the co-director of The Objective and the podcast producer for The Sick Times.