Los Angeles Times journalists have voted to authorize a strike in a move that ratchets up the pressure on management after three long years of contract negotiations.
Eighty-five percent of members who belong to the newsroom’s union and participated in the vote opted to allow the labor group to call a strike. The union, a Local of the Media Guild of the West, represents more than 200 reporters, editors, photographers, designers and others at L.A.’s hometown paper. Around 98 percent of those participated in the vote.
The move only gives the union the ability to call a strike; it does not guarantee that one will take place, and no date has been set. But it’s a significant effort on the part of the union to apply pressure to management after an unusually long contract negotiations period. Unions tend to complain after negotiators have been at the bargaining table for one year — three is something else entirely.
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“These negotiations have dragged on for far too long, and today’s vote results show that our members are fed up,” L.A. Times Guild chair Matt Hamilton, an investigative reporter at the paper, said in a statement. “Now is the time for management to come to the table with a proposal that is truly fair for our members and helps restore the Times.”
The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to the Los Angeles Times for comment.
The union’s decision isn’t a surprise, given that in August, 80 percent of its unit pledged to vote “yes” in any strike authorization vote, in a prior bid to compel management to come to terms more quickly.
With their next contract, the journalists are pushing for raises that take into account recent inflation, protections against the outsourcing of their work and new language around layoffs. In the past three years, the newsroom’s bargaining unit has been whittled down from around 450 to a little more than 200 members. During that same time, layoffs and buyouts have swept the company multiple times.
Journalists at the Times voted to form the union in 2018, at a time when the 143-year-old newspaper was under the management of Tronc, which has since been rebranded as Tribune Publishing. After local biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong purchased the paper months later, a first labor contract was reached in 2019.
The newsroom has been battered by leadership changes and shifting mandates since. In early 2024, top editor Kevin Merida exits from the editorial board and subscription cancellations.
More controversy ensued when owner Soon-Shiong added an AI-powered “bias meter” onto certain opinion stories early this year. The union pushed back, with Hamilton saying in a statement, “We don’t think this approach — AI-generated analysis unvetted by editorial staff — will do much to enhance trust in the media.”
Meanwhile, as the number of journalists at the Times falls, other publications are seeing a window of opportunity. News Corp is launching The California Post, a West Coast version of The New York Post. And the L.A. Local initiative is preparing to launch a publication with “community newsrooms” in neighborhoods like Koreatown, Boyle Heights and Pico Union. Merida, the former Times editor, is on the board.
“We’re fighting for our livelihood, for our community and for our owner’s investment,” the union’s bargaining committee co-chair Bill Shaikin, a sports columnist, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, in a moment when several other news outlets are expanding into Los Angeles, management at the Times continues to make bargaining proposals that risk devaluing the brand and, in turn, the owner’s investment.”
