Journalists of suburban publication the Daily Herald officially voted to form a labor union Thursday, according to the Daily Herald News Guild.
The 15-0 vote was observed by union and management officials at the National Labor Relations Board offices at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse. The Daily Herald staff joined the Chicago News Guild Local 34071 TNG-CWA, which also represents journalists at the Sun-Times.
The union is now planning to poll its members to determine contract conditions and schedule bargaining sessions with management at Tribune Publishing.
Kevin Schmit, the Daily Herald’s associate sports editor and a 29-year employee, said the group was quickly united by the latest round of layoffs and was fearful of what else could come due to it being the only non-union newsroom under the company.
“The Daily Herald was the outlier under the Tribune umbrella,” Schmit told the Sun-Times. “Every other one of their papers is unionized, so it was scary being the only one without that protection. You get the feeling anything they can’t do to the union shops, they were going to do to us.”
Tribune Publishing didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the last decade, the Daily Herald has been through eight rounds of buyouts and three rounds of layoffs, according to the union. Employees who survived the staff reductions saw at least a 15% pay cut and their workweek reduced to 36.5 hours.
The paper has covered suburban Chicago since 1872, and was independently owned and run by the Paddock family for four generations. In 2018, the Paddock family members sold portions of the company to its employees and set up an employee stock ownership plan.
Schmit said there had been rumblings of unionization under Paddock, but it never materialized.
The Daily Herald was acquired by Tribune Publishing in June after the company ran a full-page ad in the Chicago Tribune offering a higher price than Shaw Media, which owns other suburban papers and had previously been in talks to make a purchase.
That came after 12 of the paper’s staffers were laid off, including executive editor Lisa Miner, the paper’s copy desk and page designers.
“To be under this new place, and within a month or two lose 20% of our newsroom, it was just this body blow,” Schmit said. “But it was like jet fuel for our effort. That really upset all of us to the bone.”
All twenty union-eligible staffers signed cards in support of the union in August, though Tribune Publishing is currently contesting the eligibility of two staffers who they claim are supervisors, which reduced the vote count, Schmit said.
While it was frustrating that management refused to recognize the union voluntarily, he said the group “appreciated” the chance to show how they had come together.
“We could’ve saved a lot of time if they would have just voluntarily recognized us,” Schmit said. “If management or ownership had any thoughts about a lack of unity, we showed today we’re all together on this.”