Sarasota daily newspaper staffers seek to join union

SARASOTA — Reporters, photographers and editors at the largest daily newspaper by circulation in the Sarasota-Bradenton market, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, could join a union by the end of September.

Newsroom personnel, according to a release from the union, The NewsGuild-CWA, signed cards stating their desire to unionize during a meeting Wednesday at the Tampa regional office of the National Labor Relations Board. The move will trigger an NLRB-monitored election by Herald-Tribune staffers in the next 20 to 40 days, the release adds. The NewsGuild would represent about 40 people in the newsroom.

“The Herald-Tribune newsroom takes pride in providing a voice for Sarasota and its neighbors,” investigative reporter and three-year staff member Elizabeth Johnson says in the release. “Negotiating a good contract will allow us to preserve and continue the quality journalism we've given our community for more than 90 years.”

The union news comes less than a week after newsroom staff at the Lakeland Ledger, in Polk County, voted 22-3 to form a NewsGuild-affiliated union. If Herald-Tribune employees approve the union vote then it would join the Ledger “as the only unionized newspaper newsrooms in Florida and the first to unionize in the Sunshine State in modern memory,” The NewsGuild release states.