Published Monday, December 2, 2024 in The Stand
Everett News Guild Fights For a Fair Contract
Journalists at The Daily Herald in Everett are calling on readers and all labor supporters to stand with them as they continue to negotiate a first contract more than two years after organizing in September of 2022. As the workers head back to the bargaining table this week, they're sounding the alarm on dismally low wage offers and a misguided quota system that would further gut valuable, in-depth local news reporting.
Local journalists like the dedicated team at The Daily Herald put in countless hours to bring readers coverage of their community, from watchdogging local government to covering local worker actions. But the Herald's journalists are paid poverty wages for the region, with entry-level, full-time staffers starting at just $20.50 an hour, barely above Everett's new minimum wage. And after deep cuts to the newsroom in a round of layoffs earlier this year, journalists are stretched thin, trying to provide essential local coverage despite deteriorating working conditions and the churn of burnout and turnover these conditions cause.
Now, as the workers continue bargaining for their first contract, Herald management is offering what the union describes as "a poison pill," a meager $1/hour wage increase available only to staffers who hit a story quota of two to three bylines per day. Assuming a five day, 40 hour work week, that's 10-15 stories a week — more than 60 stories a month — for a weekly wage increase of $40 before taxes.
Journalists, like all workers, are not robots. Per the union, quotas are a failed business model, forcing reporters to rewrite press releases and pass over deeper stories the community deserves to have told. Readers could say the same; local journalism's value is in telling the important, nuanced stories that national news rarely gets right. But that deeper work requires support from management, not arbitrary quotas that pressure journalists to produce stories by quantity, not quality, in order to increase their meager pay.
The staff of The Daily Herald deserve better, and so do the communities their reporting serves. Make sure management gets the message; good journalism requires good working conditions.
https://www.thestand.org/2024/12/everett-news-guild-fights-for-a-fair-contract/