Guild members rally for respect, protections as talks begin with Pioneer Press

Guild members rally before bargaining at the Pioneer Press.

Union members at the Pioneer Press today opened negotiations with the newspaper’s hedge-fund ownership intent on bargaining a contract that respects their work, protects their safety and delivers wage and benefit gains.

After a brief rally outside the newspaper’s offices on Water Street, about two dozen members of the Minnesota Newspaper and Communications Guild walked into bargaining together, hoping to show Alden Global Capital the faces behind the numbers on its balance sheets.

The Guild represents over 50 newsroom and advertising employees at the Pioneer Press, and they have given over 600 years of combined service to the company. That’s worth fighting for, unit vice chair Jared Kaufman said.

“This contract negotiation, this thing we do every three years or so — this is our one chance to fight for the really big stuff,” he said. “That’s why this matters. The gates are open for us all to make the changes we want to see.”

In bargaining, the Guild will look to hold the line against potential use of generative artificial intelligence in place of union members’ work.

Members also want the employer to invest in the Pioneer Press — in workers’ wages and benefits, but also in their physical safety, whether it’s protections against repetitive motion injuries for workers at video editing terminals or personal protective equipment for journalists covering civil unrest.

“We deserve a company that gives us the support and resources we need to do our jobs,” reporter Imani Cruzen said during the rally. “I hope in bargaining we can ask, what does Alden bring to the table for us?”

But since it acquired the Pioneer Press as part of a larger deal that took MediaNews Group out of bankruptcy in 2010, Alden has slashed jobs both locally and in newsrooms across the country. At the time of the sale, the St. Paul paper employed over 100 journalists.

A recent Guild survey suggests the cuts have come at a cost to workplace morale. But Kaufman, a food and features reporter, said the bargaining team is energized to fight for a contract that reflects Guild members’ value to both the company and the community.

“Look around,” he told members gathered in a circle at the rally. “We’re a catch. They should be fighting to keep us, not squeezing us until we can’t handle it anymore.”

Cruzen has seen what can happen when there’s no organized effort to fight for local media. Staffing in the newsroom where she worked before joining the Pioneer Press is down to just one reporter, who works remotely.

“I don’t want that future for us,” she said.

— Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor