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Vol. 81/No. 43 November 20, 2017
Boss shuts internet news site to bust workers’ union
BY CANDACE WAGNER
NEW YORK — Some 200 people rallied here Nov. 6 in support of 115 workers
in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.,
who were fired when Joe Ricketts, billionaire owner of DNAinfo and
Gothamist, shut down the online news sites. Just days before the
shutdown, 25 out of 27 workers at the New York office had voted to join
the Writers Guild of America East. The other sites were nonunion.
“I’m proud to be out here today,” Emma Whitford, a Gothamist reporter,
told the rally. “Don’t be afraid because of what happened to us. Do what
we did. Unionize.”
Ricketts, founder of online investing company TD Ameritrade and owner of
the Chicago Cubs baseball team, is worth over $2 billion. The sites had
9 million readers a month and paid workers a fraction of what they made
“in the heyday of print newspapers,” the New York Times reported. Even
so, the company said it was losing money.
But that wasn’t why Ricketts shut it down. In September he posted a
statement titled, “Why I’m Against Unions at Businesses I Create.” It
said, “Unions promote a corrosive us-against-them dynamic that destroys
the esprit de corps businesses need to succeed.” Earlier the company’s
chief operations officer sent out an email threatening that joining the
union might be “the final straw that caused the business to close.”
“It is no secret that threats were made to these workers during the
organizing drive,” Writers Guild East Communications Director Jason
Gordon said in a statement.
Members of District Council 37 public employees union, Teamsters, United
Federation of Teachers along with other journalists joined the rally.
Related articles:
Safety at center of fight by Calif. aerospace workers
Striking Idaho silver miners rally to build support for union struggle
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