Thread by @CJNewsGuild

~ some professional news ~

We, the journalists of The Louisville Courier Journal, are ✨unionizing.✨

We love our city and our newsroom and want both to be the best they can be.

That can’t happen unless we have a seat at the table and our voices are fully heard.

A thread 🧵

Corporate-dictated unpaid furloughs.

The closing of our local press.

The listing of our building for sale.

Buyouts. Layoffs.

Time after time, @Gannett's actions have chipped away at morale and at our product.

Louisville deserves better.

(Save your Bingham jokes, plz!)

We’ve watched young reporters with fires in their bellies work second jobs because their @Gannett salary didn’t cut it.

Since the start of 2021, more than 20 of our talented and passionate colleagues have left our paper.

They deserved a company that gave back to them.

We punch above our weight class.

In the last three years, we’ve won a Pulitzer and a Peabody and earned two Pulitzer finalist nods in a single year.

That’s on top of national citations for investigative, social justice, police, education coverage.

But, to paraphrase one of Louisville’s other famous sons, our track record so clean, they can’t wait to just bash us.

We’ve asked Gannett to voluntarily recognize us. But, unlike us, their track record is … not so clean when it comes to respecting their workers.

If we are not voluntarily recognized, we will remain undeterred.

We will organize.

We will vote.

We will win, and we will create a better future for Kentucky and Southern Indiana journalism. 🐝

A few of our demands:

— Create a system of pay raises to reward institutional knowledge and commitment to Louisville
— Ensure all salaries are equitable, fair and liveable
— Drop the paywall on stories in the public’s interest, including those on natural disasters and COVID-19

Oh, and we want our company phones back!! (Glad to exchange these Peloton memberships no one asked for, catch us at the bargaining table.)

#loumedia