Ninety percent of union members at McClatchy Media newspapers in the Pacific Northwest have voted to potentially strike over low pay, and are raising money through GoFundMe to pay rent and bills in case they’re off the job.
The journalists are represented by the Idaho and Washington State NewsGuilds, which represent only the McClatchy papers in both states: The Tacoma News Tribune, The Olympian, Tri-City Herald, Bellingham Herald, and Idaho Statesman in Boise. (Both guilds are part of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, which represents Stranger staff).
The newspapers haven't decided to go on strike yet, but the vote tells management that the threat is on the table.
“We can walk out at any time,” says Cameron Probert, a career breaking news reporter at the Tri-City Herald.
“The ultimate weapon is: you will not put out a paper in the Pacific Northwest,” he says.
The Stranger reached out to McClatchy for comment on the strike pledge and received no response.
While previous negotiations have focused on concerns regarding artificial intelligence and story quotas, the impasse after 11 months of negotiations is money.
McClatchy journalists say they aren't paid enough to live in the communities they cover, and that the company refuses to raise the wage floor above $52,000 for current employees. Right now, the salary floor is $48,000 for those on staff when the Washington and Idaho contracts were ratified, and $45,000 for anyone hired after.
Considering the papers have reported extensively on the affordability in the Pacific Northwest, they find McClatchy's inflexibility especially galling.
“Do you read your own products and see how much the cost of living has gone up in these markets?” Probert says, adding that 75 percent of the union's members are classified as working poor.
“In the last 10 years my rent has gone up 50 percent,” he says.
Grocery prices continue to rise, and now gas is spiking. Though Probert says he didn't get into the industry to make a fortune, after 17 years in the industry, including 10 at the Tri-City Herald, “I am still living just on the edge.”
Ownership also hasn't demonstrated that they don't have the money to pay higher wages—union members say the McClatchy won't open up its books.
“They're not showing us that they don't have the money to do this,” Probert says.
Michael Lycklama, a sports reporter at the Idaho Statesman and chair of the Idaho News Guild, says that while the papers do make money, its extracted to pay for things like McClatchy's purchase of an AI company, the Toronto-based Trend Hunter, and its merger with the celebrity tabloid publisher accelerate360, rather than reinvested into newsrooms.
Since 2018, the price of home delivery for the Statesman's print edition has increased by 75 percent, Lycklama says, “and yet none of that money is going to our newsroom.”
“We're asking them to invest in their human reporters that generate all their revenue,” Lycklama says.
The next round of negotiations between McClatchy and its workers is May 5 according to the Idaho and Washington State NewsGuilds.
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