Editorial staffers at the sprawling Schneps Media empire, the largest local news publisher in the New York metro area, will be casting ballots Friday on whether to form a union, against the wishes of the company's owners, Vicki Schneps-Yunis and her son Josh Schneps.
As Hell Gate reported last month, 27 editorial employees across the media chain, which includes amNewYork, the Queens Courier, the Brooklyn Paper and the Bronx Times, are seeking recognition of their union, citing salaries that are below a living wage. In the wake of their announcement, public officials from the City and state government voiced their support for the union.
After the Schneps workers declared their intent to form a union, they say, they wrote to management, seeking a direct conversation about how to move forward. But the company stiff-armed them, remaining silent for several days before CEO and co-publisher Josh Schneps responded in a terse email, "You filed a petition with the NLRB and we are cooperating in that process."
What followed, unionizing workers told Hell Gate, has been a robust anti-union campaign, with management hiring a notorious union-busting law-firm, Bond, Schoeneck & King.