Tell Signal Ohio to recognize us as one union!

Background:

More than a week has passed since we announced the formation of the Signal Ohio News Workers Guild. Not only has Signal Ohio leadership failed to voluntarily recognize us, but they have enlisted Jackson Lewis, a law firm with an anti-union reputation, to try to intimidate us and reduce our power. According to its attorney, the organization is leaning toward voluntary recognition, but Signal wants to break up our one unit and negotiate with three separate units. That means three separate contracts.

Here are a few reasons we find that unacceptable:

• An overwhelming majority of Signal Ohio’s editorial workers — including 100% of our 14 full-time reporters — formed this union in response to organizational policies that affect us all. Leadership breaking us into three units will deliberately weaken our negotiating power.
  
  

• Negotiating separate contracts would delay meaningful improvement of working conditions for many of our colleagues and further isolate us from each other. This goes against our stated desire to collectively shape the future of Signal Ohio, potentially resulting in inconsistent work experiences across the organization.
  
  

• By not voluntarily recognizing us as one unit, Signal Ohio is putting itself in rare company — and not the good kind. It’s deviating from common practice for nonprofit newsrooms. Workers at Chalkbeat, CitySide, The Marshall Project and the Texas Tribune — four nonprofit news organizations with reporters in multiple cities — all received voluntary recognition under one bargaining unit after unionizing. And there are more that fit that pattern.
  
  

• Hiring a Jackson Lewis attorney with no experience negotiating a contract for a nonprofit news organization is a misguided use of the organization’s money. Much of our funding comes from donations from supporters like yourself, and all of it is meant to further our journalistic mission — not impede unions.

When Signal formed in 2022, it set out to do journalism differently, with a deep commitment to community. This isn’t the “different” we envisioned.

What you can do: Click the button on the right to send the email drafted below directly to Signal Ohio’s CEO and board members, calling on them to voluntarily recognize us as one bargaining unit and to stop working with the Jackson Lewis law firm in an effort to weaken our union.