Call to Action:
#MediaWorkersUnite Founding Convention
October 7th -11th 2015
Louisville, Kentucky
Over the last decade, even as digital journalism has greatly expanded, over 12,000 jobs have disappeared from the media industry. Those of us, who work in today’s post-print world of digital media face an entirely new and uncertain economic situation that injects entirely new forms of stress and concerns into our lives. Our response is the following Louisville Statement on the Rights of Media Workers. We call on media workers to join us in refining it and putting it into practice.
As media workers, we are entrusted to perform a function vital to democracy, yet we have such limited democracy in our own workplaces.
While incredible progress is being made on gay rights, women’s rights, transgender rights, racial justice, disability rights, and the right to unionize, full workplace rights in these areas have not been extended to the very workers, who give voice to these civil rights struggles.
We call on media workers to join us in developing a Nationwide Center for Media Workers. Together with regional media workers from all major cities, we will create a non-traditional labor committee, develop our own industry-wide campaigns to promote the right to self-determination and workplace democracy over 12 key areas of media workers’ rights.
We signed the Louisville Statement on the Rights of Media Workers at The Carl Braden Memorial Center in Louisville. We have chosen this site because it is an important part of the hidden history of media workers. Carl and his wife Anne Braden were white, Southern, trade unionists who fought for racial justice.
In 1954, during the height of McCarthyism, they were fired as reporters at the Louisville Courier-Journal when Carl was charged with sedition by the the Commonwealth of Kentucky. His “crime” was helping a black family buy a house. We will gather at the Carl Braden Memorial Center to recognize them and the many other reporters before us who fought for our civil rights.
The Louisville Statement Of Media Worker’s Rights:
· Overtime Protections President Obama’s recent executive order proposal would raise the overtime salary threshold for media workers to $50,440 a year, after which employees are required to be paid overtime for hours worked above the limit of 40 hours a week. This stands to raise the wages of thousands of media workers, who on average make $35,000 a year. All media workers, union or non-union, should be allowed to give feedback on the implementation of overtime procedures to make sure that media workers are not forced to work overtime and paid for when they do.
· Union Elections without Interference from Management The decision of whether or not employees want to form a union should be left up to employees. All employers should pledge in writing not to fire, demote, or pass over employees, who choose to form a union.
· Freelancer Rights Media employers should take steps to avoid misclassifying certain workers as independent contractors. We call on freelance writers to organize and push the industry to develop a uniform set of standards applicable to freelancers across the industry.Employers should recognize a uniform code of freelancers’ rights, developed by workers’ centers, unions, and freelancers. These rights should apply not to just freelance worker employed by American media companies in the U.S., but to foreign correspondents employed overseas, including protections for stringers, freelancers, and indigenous support staff, when employed by American media companies overseas.
· Ethical Many journalists fear raising ethical concerns with editors about their workplace or publication because they don’t want to get fired. We need to have clear workplace policies allowing workers to express ethical concerns without fear of retaliation. When the concerns revolve around managers or owners, journalists should have whistleblower rights that protect them and their confidentiality.
· Intern Rights Recent labor law advances have certified the right of certain term-bound interns to have their own unions. All interns deserve the right to form a union and advocate for their right to be paid.
· Gender Identity Newsrooms are increasingly led by women, but at many workplaces the women at the bottom still lack a voice. Every worker has the right to have a say in developing company policy in order to fairly incorporate all in the newsroom.
· Racial and Ethnic Diversity According to the 2015 annual census by the American Society of News Editors and the Center for Advanced Social Research, a mere 12.76% of people employed in newsrooms identify as racial or ethnic minorities. Many media outlets lack clear diversity plans developed in conjunction with media workers of color. People of color deserve the right to determine how their newsroom will recruit other people of color and fully incorporated into the newsroom.
· Sexual Orientation With the recent court ruling making gay marriage legal, we believe that people of all sexual orientations, being equal, should be allowed to have a voice in the development of diversity policies in the newsroom.
· Disability Rights We call on all newsrooms to develop policies that allow workers to speak up about their disabilities without intimidation. All employers should have developmental and physical disability safeguards in place to deal with any trauma that employees face in the field or in the workplace.
· Age Discrimination Protection Many veteran journalists, who have lost their jobs as print media outlets downsized and turmoil shook the digital economy have been unable to get jobs elsewhere in media. Every workplace should have a clear policy eliminating age discrimination, developed in conjunction with older employees. As journalism changes, older media workers should not be discriminated against for simply being veteran journalists.
· Technological Retraining The internet and new technologies are constantly changing the mediums and the styles in which reporters are asked to produce the news. As technology constantly redefines how we produce the news, reporters deserve the right to be trained in new technology and the right to determine how that training takes place.
· Social Media Reporters are expected to maintain a large social media following that goes with them from employer to employer. However, employers often try to regulate what employees say on social media during the hours the employees are not working. Whether they are union or non-union, media workers should be allowed to express themselves however they want in their hours when they are not at work.
Sara Steffens. Secretary-Treasurer, Communication Workers of America. Fired for union organizing as a reporter at The Contra Costa Times.
Norwood Orrick. Verizon Telephone Worker. IBEW Local 824.
Larry Williams. Managing Partner, Unionbase.org
Mike Elk. Senior Labor Reporter, POLITICO. Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild
Yvone Yen Liu. Journalist, Solidarity Research Center. IWW.
J.P. Wright. Folk Labor Reporter. Co-Chair Railroad Workers United. Kentucky IWW
Bruce Jett. former union chair, New York Daily News. Organizer, Washington Baltimore Newspaper Guild
Christina Regalado. Circuit Technician, Verizon. IBEW Local 824
Brendan Fischer. Lawyer & Writer. UAW Local 2320
Mario Vazquez, Freelance labor reporter, In These Times Magazine
Angus McDonald. Organiser & Digital Media, Australian Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance
Steven Cohen. Reporter. The New Republic
Bernie Luzner. President, The Newspaper Guild
Gabrielle Cannon. Journalist, Mother Jones. UAW
Ricardo Gutiérrez. General Secretary, European Federation of Journalists
Adam Clarkes Estes. Journalist, Gawker Media. Writer’s Guild of America East.