Dozens of employees at the Columbus Dispatch and the Newark Advocate voted Jan. 14 to unionize, in results certified Thursday by the National Labor Relations Board.
The vote was 33-5 in favor of unionizing between the two newsrooms to form the Dispatch News Guild. The union said in a statement the vote forces the USA Today Company to recognize the union.
“For too long, Ohio’s greatest home newspaper has hemorrhaged great journalists due to short-sighted cuts by our corporate owner,” Dispatch news reporter Jordan Laird said in a statement. “Now, we’re taking some power back.”
The Dispatch has undergone serious staff cuts in the six years following a merger between GateHouse Media and Gannett. In 2019, the paper had more than 90 people across all departments. Dispatch journalists said there are now less than 40 non-management employees in the newsroom.
The smaller Newark Advocate, which covers Licking County, has seen even deeper cuts. Staff said there are just three full-time reporters.
The union is calling on the company to immediately begin bargaining with the union.
USA Today Co. Labor Relations Counsel Amy Garrard said in a statement the company respects the decision of its employees at the Columbus Dispatch to unionize as part of the National Labor Relations Board election process.
"USA TODAY Co. strongly supports the NLRB’s role in ensuring a fair and democratic election in which every employee’s voice is heard, and we will continue to engage the process in good faith as we move forward," Garrard said.
The Dispatch has provided local news to readers in Columbus and central Ohio for more than 150 years.
The Dispatch News Guild's mission statement said the staff wants the Dispatch to "not only survive, but thrive."
Dispatch staff report that they have the support of sister papers at The Akron Beacon Journal, The Canton Repository, The Record-Courier and The Massillon Independent, which are all represented by The NewsGuild-CWA Local 1.
Across the USA TODAY Co. network, nearly 50 newspapers are unionized, according to The Dispatch. The Columbus Dispatch is one of the largest newspapers in the network that didn't have a union before the vote.
