Unionized reporters, editors, photographers and others at the Baltimore Sun have launched an awareness campaign “to help them secure an evasive 2.5 percent pay raise,” reports Baltimore Fishbowl.
The report, in part, added:
“An open letter published online today details the troubles facing the unionized newsroom staff. The letter, signed by 71 staffers, notes that all non-unionized employees at the paper received a 2.5 percent raise this past spring from recently (and strangely) renamed parent company tronc, Inc. When the unionized journalists attempted to negotiate for their own pay raise, tronc asked for “deep concessions,” the staffers write, including reduced salary standards for all and a piecemeal approach to handing out raises that they say would skip over advertising department and printing facility employees.
“To hammer their case home, the employees write:
We don’t think it’s fair in a year when the Baltimore Sun was a finalist in two Pulitzer Prize categories…when we — like everyone in our business these days — are working harder than ever to cover and serve our community with fewer resources…that some of those being denied raises put their personal safety at risk to cover the uprising following the death of Freddie Gray.
“The authors of the post include household names that appear in your newspaper every morning in Baltimore. All are members of the Baltimore Sun segment unit of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild. They argue tronc is attempting to weaken the union and lower the costs for their contract by holding out on raises.”
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