Salt Lake City — With overwhelming support across the newsroom, leadership at The Salt Lake Tribune agreed to voluntarily accept the petition from the Salt Lake News Guild to form a union, marking the first time in the publication’s 154-year history that employees will be unionized.
“This is a watershed moment for The Tribune and its employees,” members of the guild organizing committee said. “As a nonprofit newsroom, our first commitment is to informing our community. The journalists and production team are the lifeblood of The Tribune and there is no question that readers will benefit when we are organized and our work is respected and valued.”
“We are grateful that Tribune CEO Lauren Gustus and the board of directors recognized our crucial contributions to The Tribune and our service to the community and we are excited to be a partner in making our already essential publication even better,” the committee said.
Gustus announced Friday that management would voluntarily recognize the guild. Under federal labor law, the guild members will now elect a bargaining committee and begin negotiations on a labor contract. The guild plans to set in stone the recent salary and benefit gains and to build in other areas — addressing wage equity, insulating journalists from pageview pressures, opening up The Tribune board of directors, establishing guidelines for donor interaction with reporters and setting clear parameters to deal with artificial intelligence and other evolving technology.
Contract negotiations typically take several months and can take more than a year.
“Gaining recognition is a first step, but it is a critical one,” the committee said. “The credit goes to all of our colleagues who banded together and pledged to support each other to make The Tribune an even stronger, more vibrant and invaluable Utah institution.”
Contact: saltlakenewsguild@gmail.com