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Daily Hampshire Gazette's President Says Union Will 'Erode' The Paper

A Daily Hampshire Gazette staff member wears a pin advocating for a labor union.
Nancy Eve Cohen
/
NEPR
Daily Hampshire Gazette editor Dave Eisenstadter wears a pin advocating for a labor union.

Employees at the Daily Hampshire Gazette got a letter Tuesday from the president of the company that owns the paper, saying he opposes the union they're trying to form.

Aaron Julien, president and CEO of Newspapers of New England, Inc., wrote employees that "adding a union to the mix will erode" the newspaper. And that the company would no longer "have the ability to deal directly" with staff.

Julien said a union "would inject an outside third party" into the company's relationship with workers.

Dusty Christensen, a staff writer at the Gazette, said 70 percent of employees who are eligible to be in the union support it. 

“It’s not some outside group trying to weasel its way into the company,” Christensen said. “It's workers saying, we demand a voice.”

Julien said in an interview that he takes the workers' concerns very seriously, and that he'll be talking with employees directly.

Christensen said employees have asked the National Labor Relations Board to authorize an election to form the Pioneer Valley Newsguild, which would be part of the National News Guild and the Communication Workers of America.

Employees at the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and Springfield Republican have unions, but those at the Berkshire Eagle don't.

Malcolm Emerich, a special projects organizer with the National News Guild, pointed out that unions formed at the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune in the last two months.

"There has been a wave of organizing over the past three years," he said. "The word on every manager's lips in media is, 'Do more with less.'"

Emerich said his group is getting calls from staff at other papers after they heard about the union effort at the Gazette.

Correction: An earlier version of this report misspelled Dusty Christensen's name.

Nancy Eve Cohen is a former NEPM senior reporter whose investigative reporting has been recognized with an Edward R. Murrow Regional Award for Hard News, along with awards for features and spot news from the Public Media Journalists Association (PMJA), American Women in Radio & Television and the Society of Professional Journalists.

She has reported on repatriation to Native nations, criminal justice for survivors of child sexual abuse, linguistic and digital barriers to employment, fatal police shootings and efforts to address climate change and protect the environment. She has done extensive reporting on the EPA's Superfund cleanup of the Housatonic River.

Previously, she served as an editor at NPR in Washington D.C., as well as the managing editor of the Northeast Environmental Hub, a collaboration of public radio stations in New York and New England.

Before working in radio, she produced environmental public television documentaries. As part of a camera crew, she also recorded sound for network television news with assignments in Russia, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba and in Sarajevo during the war in Bosnia.
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