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| The Record of Woodland Park and the Hackensack Chronicle, a free weekly that reprints stories and photos from the once-great daily newspaper known far and wide as the Bergen Record. |
By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR
HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Employees of The Record of Woodland Park and two other daily newspapers owned by Gannett are seeking recognition of a union after hundreds of them were laid off in recent years.
The other papers are the Daily Record of Morristown and the New Jersey Herald of Newton.
"The three papers represented by members of our union have provided local news to northern New Jersey for more than 100 years," Record reporter Terrence McDonald told the New Jersey Globe.
"In fewer than 5 years, Gannett has turned each into a shadow of their former selves," McDonald told The Globe.
"We organized to bring more power to the writers, photographers and web producers who are dedicated to providing our communities with the journalism they deserve," he said.
The union effort includes employees of NorthJersey.com, The Record's website, where some stories are labeled "for subscribers" only.
If Gannett turns down the voluntary request, the employees can petition the National Labor Relations Board to conduct an election.
No comment
Globe Editor David Wildstein, who was a key figure in the Bridgegate scandal during the Christie administration, reported that Gannett appeared to have "embargoed" coverage of the bid by editorial staffers to unionize.
The Record has covered other bids by private sector employees to form labor unions, including bids by non-Gannett journalists to organize at the Los Angeles Times, Wildstein reported.
Dan Sforza, The Record's executive editor, did not respond to several requests for comment.
72 employees sign
Employees of the 3 newspapers are seeking recognition after "almost 90% of eligible employees -- a total of 66 -- signed on with the NewsGuild of New York," The Globe reported, later amending the total number seeking to unionize to 72.
Those employees posted a mission statement at TheRecordGuild.com, their website (and it appears in full in the comments section at the end of this post).
Previous union attempts
When The Record was headquartered at 150 River St. in Hackensack and owned by the Borg family, several efforts to unionize press room workers were made, but they were unsuccessful.
In the 1980s, a number of reporters also wanted to join the New York Newspaper Guild, but could not reach a consensus.
The Record closed its headquarters in Hackensack in 2009, and moved employees to 1 Garret Mountain Plaza in Woodland Park.
Sale to Gannett
The Borg family sold North Jersey Media Group to Gannett in July 2016 for nearly $40 million in cash.
Stephen A. Borg, who was then the publisher, engineered the biggest downsizing in The Record's history in 2008, targeting veteran employees who were earning high salaries.
He then froze newsroom salaries for several years before the sale.
NJMG published 2 daily newspapers, The Record and Herald News, numerous weekly newspapers and (201) magazine.
350+ layoffs
By March of 2017, Gannett had laid off more than 350 NJMG employees.
Gannett was acquired by GateHouse Media in 2019, and the company reportedly plans to outsource 485 jobs to India this year.
Ultimately, SoftBank, a Japanese conglomerate, owns the equity fund that controls The Record and (201) magazine.
Stephen Borg and his partners are now building hundreds of luxury apartments on nearly 20 acres of land along River Street after tearing down NJMG's headquarters and a diner in Hackensack.
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