A Note Regarding Unionization In The Athletic’s U.S. Newsroom

Hi all,

Several company leaders and I received a letter on Monday requesting that eligible members of our U.S. Athletic newsroom join the bargaining unit of the NewsGuild that represents journalists at The New York Times. I appreciate hearing from so many of you, and want to emphasize that The New York Times Company has for decades worked productively with numerous unions, including the NewsGuild.

We strongly believe that the best approach is to have The Athletic's journalists form a separate bargaining unit within the NewsGuild, not to have them absorbed into the Times unit, as was proposed in the letter. We are prepared to voluntarily recognize such a separate unit, as we did with the Wirecutter Union.

The Athletic's newsroom is completely independent from The Times's, with separate leadership. This difference has allowed us to preserve policies and practices that are specific to the needs of covering sports both nationally and locally, with a workforce around the country. That has enabled us to maintain our unique workplace culture and deliver our distinctive best-in-class journalism for fans.

Further, The Athletic needs to be an economically sustainable business that can financially support what has grown into one of the largest newsrooms, with more than 500 journalists. We've made progress towards that ambition, but we still have a long way to go. A separate contract and bargaining unit is the best path for maintaining the size and strength of our newsroom and achieving further growth.

We also believe that a separate bargaining unit would offer the fastest path toward reaching a contract that works for our employees and The Athletic.

In contrast, Monday's proposal - our newsroom colleagues joining the existing Times unit, and being subsumed into its contract - would be a mistake. That contract was negotiated for a different newsroom, with a different mission and competitive dynamics, and The Times bargaining unit is run by non-Athletic leadership. Joining the Times unit would assuredly change our culture and put The Athletic newsroom's priorities second to those of the much larger unit. It would make our operating model and economics more challenging.

The Athletic's newsroom does exceptional journalism, and I'm incredibly proud of your work. We believe that the approach that I've outlined here, giving you the opportunity to have separate union representation under the NewsGuild umbrella, is the right one.

The next step is for us to work with the NewsGuild to see if we can reach an agreement, and if not, we'll proceed to a process with the National Labor Relations Board.

Please feel free to reach out to me, Steven, Cliff and other Athletic leaders if you have questions. As this process moves forward, we look forward to ongoing conversations.

Best,
David