The warning signs revealed themselves pretty early for Emily Brindley.
She began working for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram as an investigative reporter in June 2021. Brindley, who happens to be a University of Pittsburgh graduate, cherished being part of such a “small but scrappy newsroom” and quickly joined the Fort Worth NewsGuild bargaining committee that was attempting to negotiate what would be the Star-Telegram’s first labor contract with its owner, The McClatchy Company.
Her first taste of how ruthless McClatchy could be was when the company decided not to renew the contracts of two Star-Telegram workers who were there via Report for America. They also both happened to be on the bargaining committee, and McClatchy essentially laying them off cut that unit in half.
“Seeing that firsthand and being at the bargaining table and seeing those two laid off, that showed me who McClatchy was,” Brindley, now the Fort Worth NewsGuild’s bargaining chair, told the Union Progress. “This was not a company that cared about its journalists.”
That sentiment began to spread throughout the Star-Telegram newsroom until it finally boiled over earlier this week when the Forth Worth NewsGuild officially enacted a labor strike. The strike commenced Monday morning with 91% guild support as Star-Telegram staff members attempt to show McClatchy that they mean business.
“I would not want to hold a hedge fund accountable with any other group of people,” said Kaley Johnson, a Star-Telegram crime and social justice reporter and the Fort Worth NewsGuild’s vice president. “I think we do have a very tight-knit newsroom, and my little heart gets filled with love and admiration for each and every one of them.”
This is the first large-scale newspaper strike nationwide following the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh walkout that began on Oct. 18. It also comes on the heels of one-day walkouts staged earlier his year by unionized Gannett journalists, three McClatchy-owned publications in Miami and The Morning Call in Allentown, Pa.
The Star-Telegram filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board against its ownership in August over its alleged bad-faith bargaining practices over the past two-plus years.
“The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is serving our communities, covering the news that matters to Tarrant County and North Texas,” Star-Telegram executive editor Steve Coffman said in a statement to the Union Progress. “We continue to bargain in good faith and look forward to reaching an agreement.”
Brindley said that during the bargaining process, the Fort Worth NewsGuild presented McClatchy with a contract proposal that would codify a minimum salary of $57,500 for all guild-eligible members. That figure represented what their research had shown to be a livable wage for affording a one-bedroom apartment in Fort Worth. McClatchy came back to them with a salary floor of $45,000, which to Brindley was a “pristine example of the company being … unwilling to engage with us in good faith.”
In Johnson’s 4½ years at the Star-Telegram, she has seen at least six senior reporters with decades of experience leave the newspaper “specifically because of financial failures on the part of the company.
“Those people needed to put kids through college and plan for retirement,” she said. “The company simply wouldn’t do that for them.”
Going on a strike is a big decision, and Brindley said that the Star-Telegram’s was proceeded by a sickout and circulated strike pledge to take NewsGuild members’ temperature on the issue. Star-Telegram leadership was notified at 6 a.m. Monday that a Fort Worth NewsGuild strike had officially begun.
“I honestly feel relieved,” Brindley said. “This has been such a long process of organizing this and making sure we have everything in place. It’s a very intensive process to gear up for a strike. … I slept like a baby last night and feel great today now that we’re actually doing it. It feels great to take that step as a solid unit together.”
Within hours, both McClatchy and Star-Telegram leadership were already attempting to impede the strike effort. A Monday email from Coffman obtained by the Union Progress indicated that the company was already “recruiting journalists” and posting those jobs online immediately. A separate Monday email sent by McClatchy head of people Chris Klyse informed striking employees that they “will see their health care insurance lapse at the end of the day on Nov. 30, 2022.”
Losing health care could be catastrophic for Star-Telegram workers such as education enterprise reporter Silas Allen, who tweeted Monday that he is “still in outpatient rehab following a stroke last year” and that McClatchy’s strategy “is going to affect me pretty severely.” Johnson expressed concern about not being able to refill her anxiety medication during such a stressful time. That said, none of McClatchy’s tactics so far have weakened her resolve.
“If the company was trying to break the strike, they really did the opposite,” she said. “If anyone was feeling unsure about it, they no longer are because McClatchy just wholly showed who they are and what they care about yesterday, and that is not our best interest.”
Both Johnson and Brindley have been heartened by the local and national displays of support for their fledgling strike, including the more than $22,000 that has already been donated to the Fort Worth NewsGuild Strike Fund. Johnson lamented the number of stories that will go uncovered during the strike and said that McClatchy owes its readership “an apology for the local news the community is losing during this time period.”
Neither of them wanted to go on strike. But at a certain point, they and most of the Fort Worth NewsGuild had to admit it was the best way to hopefully get the company’s attention.
“If going on strike is what it takes to get to those livable wages and fair and livable company polices,” Brindley said, “then that’s what we’ll do.”
She had a simple message for McClatchy and Star-Telegram management: “Meet us at the table. We will be more than happy to get this contract rounded out.”
Joshua covers pop culture, media and more at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Contact him at jaxelrod@unionprogress.com.