Newsroom employees at our content partner the Omaha World-Herald have voted to unionize.
Reporters, copy editors, and photographers voted 71-5 to affiliate with The NewsGuild, which represents some 25,000 media employees nationwide. The newly formed newsroom union will represent 80 to 90 journalists at the World-Herald.
Negotiations toward a first contract with the paper's owner, Omaha-based BH Media Group, are expected to begin in the coming months. BH Media is owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway company.
Supporters of the unionizing effort said they formed a union to preserve quality journalism and the paper's local flavor amid financial pressures threatening newspapers across the country and in the wake of downsizing in recent months by BH Media. The company paid Davenport, Iowa-based Lee Enterprises to manage the World-Herald and BH Media's other newspapers in July. More than a dozen newsroom employees were either laid off or took early retirement in as part of downsizing by BH Media in February and August.
The World-Herald, according to BH Media's website, has more than 100,000 print subscribers and 1 million unique visitors per month at Omaha.com.
