Thank You For Supporting Local News

Lee Enterprises

Thank you for standing up for local journalism!

The petition signatures, letters to the editor and public support at our guild’s historic first picket sent a resounding message: Our community values local news, and wants it to remain strong.

Your voice made a difference. Throughout two months of hard-fought negotiations, we consistently saw that community opinion was one of the biggest influences on Lee Enterprises.

The incredible support that we received made it possible for us to arrive at a new contract with Iowa-based Lee.

The agreement announced this week will be in effect for two years. Highlights include:

  • Guild members will see across-the-board raises of 2% in each year of the agreement. In addition, the minimum, full-time pay offered in our newsrooms will rise to $40,000, an increase of about 12%, between now and 2023.
  • Equity adjustment raises were secured to continue efforts championed by the guild to fix pay gaps. Together, the inequity corrections and higher minimum pay rate mean nearly half of our guild will get a raise above 2%.
  • Our newsrooms also are assured of better layoff policies, additional parental leave and expanded paid time off under the new contract.

Lee Enterprises resisted raising its mileage reimbursement rate to the IRS standard – a point highlighted in our petition campaign – but announced it would voluntarily increase its prior rate by several cents per mile beginning this month.

These gains will help make it possible for our papers to continue recruiting and retaining dedicated journalists to serve Southwest Virginia.

And none of it would have happened without you. In addition to strengthening our position at the bargaining table, your support and comments kept us inspired and energized.

We’re moving into the next two years committed to serving you, and bringing our community the news it needs.

Our online petition campaign is now closed but we're preserving a copy of the original statement below.

In solidarity,

TIMESLAND NEWS GUILD
Twitter: @TimeslandGuild | Facebook: @TimeslandNewsGuild

To: Lee Enterprises
From: [Your Name]

Lee Enterprises' message to stockholders this year has been clear: The company and its newspapers are in a strong and growing financial position. Lee must share that success with its journalists.

Yet, Lee’s offer to its newsroom at The Roanoke Times in contract talks has been a wage package that doesn’t keep pace with the cost of living, a mileage reimbursement that is about half the rate of the IRS standard and potential double-digit increases in employee health insurance costs.

This is an unacceptable example of this growing company's failure to invest in the very journalists who are driving the company's success.

Lee's offer grossly undervalues its journalists and fails to recognize the strength of this storied community institution. It fails to cover the growing costs of unprecedented inflation, skyrocketing fuel prices and higher grocery bills.

Lee must do better and commit to offering its employees a fair contract.

The Roanoke Times is a major community asset to Southwest Virginia. We, the readers, won’t stand by quietly while you destroy the work of the dedicated journalists who make the paper a source of pride for this community and a news product worth buying.

Your current contract proposals would damage the quality of the paper that we rely on by making the newsroom a less attractive place to work and making it harder to recruit talented people to your staff.

The work that this newsroom does is important. It’s what makes the paper worth reading. Please prove that you care about The Roanoke Times and about the reputation of Lee Enterprises. Stop trying to destroy the very things that make the paper so valuable, and work with the guild on a fair contract deal now.

Keeping The Roanoke Times strong will allow it to remain a beacon of accountability, integrity and information, and to serve readers and advertisers in Southwest Virginia.

And that’s what we deserve.