The NewsGuild-CWA is a labor union founded by newspaper journalists in 1933. In addition to improving wages and working conditions, its constitution says its purpose is to fight for honesty in journalism and the news industry's business practices. The current president is Jon Schleuss.
History
The organization's founders were Joseph Cookman an editor of the New York Post, Allen Raymond of the New York Herald Tribune and Heywood Broun of the New York World-Telegram. The inaugural chapter was based in Cleveland, Ohio, and Carl Randau was its first director from 1934 to 1940. It was originally called the American Newspaper Guild, but it changed its name in the 1970s to reflect the fact that it also operated outside the United States. It had expanded into Canada in the 1950s. It became affiliated with the American Federation of Labor in 1936, then left to go into the new Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1937, when it expanded its membership to non-editorial departments. It merged with the Communications Workers of America in 1995. The Guild is also affiliated with the International Federation of Journalists. The Guild has more than 32,000 members in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. Its membership has expanded from just journalists to many other employees of newspapers and news agencies, such as clerks who take classified ads and computer support workers. It also represents workers in a number of other industries. In 2015, the union changed its name from Newspaper Guild to its current name, NewsGuild, to reflect that newspapers aren't the only publishers of news.
Broun's influence
The Newspaper Guild, represented by many journalists and other written media workers since 1933, became one of the most continuous and effective media organizations in the United States. Heywood Broun was one of the most respected journalist and most popular, highly paid contributor. On August 7, 1933, Broun acknowledged the New York World-Telegram column and the progress of the newspaper’s business which was successful. He evaluated the progress more closely with his bosses than any other colleague of similar economic standing. Broun wrote, “the fact that newspaper editors and owners are genial folk should hardly stand in the way of organization of a newspaper writers’ union. There should be one.” His column has influenced journalists from many states to rise up in opposition to the newspaper’s authorities and organize by publishers to show the importance of the newspaper union and expanding the foundation. Heywood launched the Guild during the Depression according to the biography which Richard O’Connor said, “newspapermen to take a more practical view of their working conditions and organize against the rapacity of publishers.” During the earlier times of the Guild, there were complaints from the “rapacious” publishers about federal regulation of minimum wages and maximum hours for newsroom workers set by the National Recovery Act. The publishers wanted an amount of money to not pay tax on from the NRA on constitutional grounds and their First Amendment rights would be prohibited if the workers were forced to restrictive management under the government as the forty-hour work week. This rallied around from Broun’s call for labor union and one would speak for all newsmen and newswomen.
Status in 1942
In 1942 Henning Heldt, as a Nieman Fellow, contributed an article on the Newpaper Guild to a collection published by Nieman Fellows that year at Harvard University. In 1934 a convention of the Guild was held in St. Paul, Minnesota. In an effort to elevate the standards of journalism, it was Heldt described the radical past, arrival, and conservative turn of the Guild in 1942: Positing a "legend of newsmen", Heldt lamented that the Guild finished off the legend: In 1970s, the union expanded its scope outside of the United States. and adopted the name of Newspaper Guild or TNG. It also collaborated with another union called the Communications Workers of America in 1977. The combined union had hundreds of thousands of workers in telecommunications and media, and later adopted a new name, The Newspaper Guild-CWA.
Archives
The Walter P. Reuther Library is the official repository of The Newspaper Guild Official Archives. , Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.
