Non-management news staff at Alaska’s most widely read newspaper voted on whether or not to form a union on Tuesday afternoon.
Former Anchorage Daily News staff handed out doughnuts in the parking lot, and members of the employee group that is asking to be recognized as the Anchorage News Guild wore t-shirts to show their support for the cause.
Anchorage Daily News reporter Tess Williams said that contributed to a sense of excitement around the vote.
“We’ve all been working pretty hard at this for a decent amount of time now, so it’s really exciting to kind of see this finally happening,” she said.
Williams said the group is confident it will prevail with a large majority. The group announced its intention to unionize in September and said 80% of eligible employees at the newspaper had already signed union authorization cards, a necessary first step to organize a union.
The vote is required because Anchorage Daily News’ publisher declined to voluntarily recognize the union.
If the vote is successful, the Anchorage Daily News would be the state’s only currently unionized newsroom. Union supporters have said the union would advocate for fair wages, increased financial transparency and a sustainable workplace environment. It would begin negotiations as part of NewsGuild-CWA, part of the Communications Workers of America union.
For Williams, who has been with the paper for five years, unionization carries the promise of more equitable wages.
“I love what I do, but I also need to be able to afford to live here. I am among the lowest paid in the newsroom, despite having been here five years,” she said. “Our raises aren’t distributed evenly, and we really want to see a pay scale so that there are fair wages.”
The Tuesday vote was overseen by the National Labor Relations Board at the Anchorage Daily News office in Anchorage. Employees had a two-hour window to cast votes on secret ballots between noon and 2 p.m. Both management and staff were allowed to have an observer present. Some employees who work outside of Anchorage were allowed to vote by mail.
Megan Pacer, a digital audience producer for the paper, said a recent meeting between management and the nascent union went fairly well.
“We remain steadfast in our goal to unionize,” she said. “This is new territory for all of us, so it’s a learning curve and a big step for all of us.”
Anchorage Daily News owner Ryan Binkley and editor David Hulen did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday afternoon.
Because a few staff members work remotely and cast their votes by mail, the votes will not be counted until Nov. 5 — yes, Election Day — when the National Labor Relations Board will count the votes live on an afternoon videoconference.