About 750 Washington Post journalists and business-side staffers went on strike Thursday for 24 hours—the biggest labor walkout at the newspaper in decades.
The walk-out comes after 18 months of contract negotiations as the Post is planning to deal with a $100 million loss this year by eliminating some 240 jobs. So far, only about 120 staffers have taken buyout offers.
The Post Guild, the union that has been the voice of the newspaper’s employees since 1934 and represents about 1,000 staffers across the newsroom, has claimed that “management has refused to bargain in good faith.”
Workers’ concerns also include pay equity, raises comparable with inflation and remote work policies.
“We did not come to this decision to do this walkout lightly,” said Post reporter Marissa Lang, who covers housing and serves on the Guild’s bargaining team. “We all work at The Washington Post because we believe in its mission and we believe in what we do. And we care deeply about the work we do, the people, the communities, the stories we cover.”
A spokesperson for Post brass said in a statement, “We respect the rights of our Guild-covered colleagues to engage in this planned one-day strike. We will make sure our readers and customers are as unaffected as possible.”
It was a year ago that more than 1,100 members of the New York Times Co. went on a 24-hour strike when negotiations with that news organization failed to succeed in reaching a “complete and equitable contract” with its workers.
The Times reached a deal with its union members five months after the one-day strike, with union workers receiving immediate salary increases of up to 12.5%.
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