I’ve been surprised by the reluctance of journalism graduate students — many of whom serve as graduate assistants — to sign cards authorizing a union election for graduate workers.
Reluctance is understandable — journalistic ethics emphasize objective and unbiased coverage, and journalism graduate students are as committed to their work as any other graduate student. It’s not a far leap from there to believing any involvement with a union would be a conflict of interest.
But it’s still a surprise — and it’s surprising because of my own family narrative. This isn’t an abstraction to me. My grandfather worked in journalism through most of his life, first hawking newspapers as a newsboy in Los Angeles in the 1920s and 30s, and then as a Marine working for _Leatherneck_ magazine and as a journalist for the _Honolulu Advertiser_. I have a copy of a letter from J. Edgar Hoover (a dubious distinction) expressing how much he enjoyed one of my grandfather’s pieces for _Leatherneck_.
Grandpa was passionate about journalism, and even visited the MU’s journalism school and thought about applying after he returned from the Pacific at the end of World War II. He was also committed to the labor movement — in part because of his belief in its ability to deliver economic security for working people — and served as a shop steward for his Newspapers Guild local in Honolulu. He even turned down a promotion to a supervisory position so he could keep his union card. A picture of him, my father, and my uncles on the picket line, carrying Newspapers Guild placards, sits on my desk.
Unions weren’t unusual for newspapers — in fact, through the end of the 1960s, the newspaper industry had high union density from production through reporting. The decline of newspaper unions (though not their extinction; many papers such as the Seattle Times are still union, and new companies like Gawker Media have recently organized) came hand-in-hand with changes in production and the consolidation of local newspapers into large media companies. This process more than halved the number of newspaper owners between 1945 and 1975. In many cases, large media companies, such as Gannett, had the express intention of breaking organized labor in their newly acquired newspapers. Profit, rather than good journalism, was their core motive.
Yet a free, and indeed vibrant, press existed alongside unions. Unless we’re willing to believe that a free press never existed until the 1980s, we have to acknowledge that union membership is not a danger to journalism: something that the Newspaper Guild has fought long battles over since their formation in the 1930s. They’ve made the argument — upheld by federal labor courts — that employer conflict of interest rules are a term of employment (which, in a union shop, is collectively bargained) and that they cannot preclude union membership.
Signing a card to authorize a union election for graduate workers doesn’t mean one has to join the union. It doesn’t even mean one has to vote yes to form a union. But if history and the tradition of organized newspaper labor teaches anything, it’s that union membership doesn’t compromise good journalism — and that labor rights exist alongside, and do not conflict with, the right to a free press.
Connor Lewis
Co-chairman of the Coalition of Graduate Workers
clewis740@gmail.com