Martha Shanahan photo
Hearst reporters (and New Haven residents) Brian Zahn and John Moritz bring pizza to their union-hopeful colleagues at the news chain's Meriden office Thursday.
New Haven Register reporters and their Hearst newspaper chain colleagues across Connecticut have moved to form a union — to gain a “seat at the table” for workplace negotiations around pay, in-person office policies, and how artificial intelligence is used in the news.
A group called the Connecticut News Guild made that announcement in a Thursday morning email press release.
According to that release, more than 80 percent of the 110 Hearst Connecticut employees who would be eligible for the union — including reporters, photographers, editors, and digital producers — have already signed union cards.
The group is seeking to join the The NewsGuild-Communication Workers of America (CWA), which represents reporters across the country at publications ranging from the American Prospect to the Baltimore Sun to the Chicago Tribune to Thomson Reuters.
The group has asked their employer, Hearst Connecticut, to voluntarily recognize the union.
Hearst Connecticut did not respond to requests for comment by the publication time of this article.
Brian Zahn, a Hearst Connecticut reporter who first joined the Register in 2015 and currently reports on West Haven, told the Independent that the group filed on Thursday for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The group does not yet have a date set for that election.
“I love reporting, but the job is becoming more difficult by the day, and it’s a struggle to live in
the community I cover while also helping to raise a family,” Hearst reporter (and former Valley Independent Sentinel reporter) Ethan Fry is quoted as saying in Thursday’s press release. “I’m joining with my colleagues to organize collectively so we can ensure readers throughout Connecticut get the best journalism possible.”
Zahn agreed during a phone interview with the Independent Thursday afternoon.
“We want a fair contract. We want the opportunity to negotiate a fair contract with management,” he said. “We would like to meet them at the table to discuss ways we can make Connecticut’s journalism sector a very strong one.”
Zahn framed the union drive as “a love letter to journalism.” He and his Connecticut colleagues love their jobs, and want to stay in their jobs, he said. They also “want to make sure we’re making wages that keep up with the cost of living.”
The state branch of the national newspaper chain owns most of the legacy print dailies in southern and central Connecticut, including Connecticut Post, Greenwich Time, The Middletown Press, The New Haven Register, The News-Times, The Norwalk Hour, The Register Citizen and Stamford Advocate. Just last year, Hearst purchased the Meriden daily that had been family owned for over 156 years. Hearst owns Connecticut magazine as well, along with local print weeklies. The company has replaced the Hartford Courant — which has shrunk under the ownership of the Alden Global Capital private equity firm — as the state’s leading legacy print organization. It is seeking to adapt to the new news environment through a combination of intensive focus on generation online story clicks and pooling resources to share among its nine daily newspapers, including with a statewide investigation team.
The union drive comes several months after Hearst — which has owned the Register since 2017 — left its New Haven offices and consolidated much of its newsroom in Meriden. Zahn noted that he’s expected to drive to come to the Meriden offices three times a week, even though he lives in Westville and most of his reporting is done in West Haven.