After a concerted and sometimes unpleasant organizing effort this year, journalists at Schneps Media, the largest local news empire in the New York City metro area, won their vote to unionize in July.
But early indications suggest that may have been the easy part.
Last week, the union released a video on social media highlighting Schneps management's refusal to acknowledge six employees' membership in the bargaining unit. Some of those employees have the title of "digital editor." But while "editor" can sometimes indicate a managerial role in a newsroom, none of them have any managerial authority.
"I can't hire people. I can't fire people," Emily Davenport, the digital editor at AMNew York, told Hell Gate.
Davenport has been with the company since 2016. In that time, she said, "I've seen a lot of people come and go, leaving because they can't afford to stay in it. They love local journalism, this was their dream, they went to journalism school, they came from other smaller papers thinking they'd have better opportunities here, but they can't stick around because they're not getting paid."