Presented by NWU President Larry Goldbetter to the delegate body and attending rank-and-file members on Saturday, November 16 during the 2024 Delegate Assembly in New York City.
Welcome to the 2024 DA. In China, there is a saying: “May you live in interesting times.” It looks like we may have hit the jackpot! There are some very positive developments happening in the union, starting with the fact that we have more than 60 delegates registered for this DA, the first in-person, hybrid DA since 2018. It’s truly a big deal to have the bulk of our delegates not just meeting in-person but spending the weekend together building friendships. These bonds and personal ties will prove to be the unbreakable links that hold us together through the ups and downs, through the storms that may lie ahead.
We have a new national leadership elected last June and some of them are also meeting in-person for the first time, though we have been getting to know each other through meetings and struggles online. I would like to think that together, we are bringing a world of varied
backgrounds and experiences to the table to help guide the union forward. We all have a lot to teach and, speaking for myself, a lot to learn. One of the main goals of this DA is to further unite the union, bringing more veteran and newer delegates together to plot our course through what promises to be a most challenging time.
Before we can objectively set goals and a direction for the union, we must have an objective
view of the world and industry, the sea that we swim in. Today, that starts with the return of Donald Trump. We could spend the whole weekend and then some evaluating the election, but I want to focus on just a few ways Trump’s return can impact our union directly.
The Elephant in the Room
A shadow is cast over this DA, the rise of fascism. Yes, today we can meet and collect dues and still operate and still have media to work in. But this is all subject to change. And this DA, like it or not, is a meeting of the first responders to this looming crisis. What we do will make a
difference in the future of our union, and hopefully contribute to the struggle for another kind of world.
Trump’s return signals a direct threat to writers, journalists, and media workers. We can expect more book banning and arrests, raids on our homes and offices, and tapped phones to terrorize us into self-censorship. This was jump-started with the retaliation against media workers who spoke out against the Gaza war and was documented in the NWU report, Red Lines. It was also reflected when billionaire newspaper owners Jeff Bezos (WAPO) and Patrick Soon-Shiong (LA Times) and the vast majority of America’s largest newspapers cancelled their presidential endorsements largely due to “growing polarization and fears of political retribution.”
If history is any guide, when a racist mob attacked the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021, they assaulted media workers covering the riot. Journalists were threatened and surrounded, equipment destroyed and stolen. “Murder the Media” was scrawled on a door inside the
Capitol and a noose was made from media cables and hung from a tree.
As of this writing, Congress is considering the fast-track passage of HR 9495, which would give the secretary of the treasury the power to unilaterally revoke the non-profit status of any group considered to be a “terrorist-supporting organization.” This is part of a larger effort aimed at doing to the anti-Gaza war movement what Israel is doing to Gaza. Our bold and public opposition to the massacre and the targeting of Palestinian journalists that Netanyahu has called terrorists, and our financial support to the IFJ Safety Fund for our PJS comrades in the war zone, suffice to say that other unions and not-for-profits have already been targeted.
Another area I want to touch on is immigration. During Trump I, journalists covering the border crisis in Mexico had their devices seized and copied before being allowed to return to the US. NWU played an important role, organizing an International Committee and sending members directly into the fight. At the time we were in UAW Region 9A with 45,000 members, and the Region decided to subsidize travel for any member who wanted to go to the border to help in the crisis. We worked closely with New Sanctuary City and participated in mass rallies and vigils to close the immigration detention centers and stop deportations. When Trump threatened to target sanctuary cities, NWU convened a meeting of representatives from various unions hosted by RWDSU, including LiUNA, 32BJ, PSC, NYSNA, 1199 and others to develop a labor rapid response to any mass roundups in NYC.
This week Trump named Tom Homan as “border czar,” and Stephen Miller as his deputy chief of staff. These two xenophobes and anti-immigrant terrorists were the architects of Trump’s previous family separation policy, removing children from their families at the border. This time around they are promising to use the National Guard to conduct mass arrests of immigrants and warehousing them in military camps in an “historic deportation operation.” Michelle Goldberg recently wrote in the New York Times, “Miller has said that Trump would cancel the temporary protected status of thousands of Afghans who fled here after the Taliban’s takeover and take another stab at ending DACA, the program that protects from deportation some immigrants brought to the United States as children.” I propose we renew our efforts coming out of this assembly.
Growing Stronger to Meet the Challenges
There’s some good news too. Many of us have worked hard and we have achieved some modest successes. We passed Freelance Protection laws against non-payment in NYS, IL and most recently CA, and we are raising rates and standards at freelance-friendly publications with new bargaining agreements. We are organizing literary translators and audio freelancers and winning thousands of dollars for freelance workers in non-payment, breach of contract grievances, and in many cases taking the deadbeat publishers to court. And we can all be extremely proud of our solidarity work with the PJS and Palestinian journalists. We have modestly expanded our work and maintained our membership. But we have not grown. More than anything, this reflects the difficulties we face in building a union of precarious workers with very limited resources.
We need to resolve that the goal of all our efforts is to grow. For example, if we are entering into bargaining talks with a publisher, is our main goal gaining members or winning an agreement? It’s not so simple. We have had more success winning agreements than members at publications. The same is true for our legislative efforts. But without members, how can we enforce the agreement? Without members, how do other freelance workers at that publication know where to turn? These questions need serious discussion. That is not to say we have not grown stronger, gained valuable experience, and won some improvements in working conditions. But our main goal in every campaign should be to grow the union. Every bargaining and legislative campaign should start with an NWU organizing committee and pay as much attention to the plan for growing as we do to the tactics of the campaign.
This includes paying more attention to strengthening the chapters and giving more support to the chapter chairs. One way to jump-start this would be a union-wide lapsed member campaign carried out by chapters with support from the national office and offering stipends using chapter funds to call and renew lapsed members. Something to consider at the chapter discussions this weekend.
We have taken some initial steps in this direction by offering stipends to more members for targeted organizing work. We have invested more than $125,000 in eight member/organizers. This includes the treasurer and two vice presidents who are also the current co-chairs of the
Media Division, a legislative campaign coordinator, and a coordinator of the Unilateral Announcement (UA) bargaining work. More than a third of the total, $48,000, has gone into improving our internal and external communications.
The Executive Committee will be reviewing and evaluating all our stipend and salaried positions in the coming weeks, to see how we can strengthen our organizing. These evaluations and the proposals that come out of them will impact our budget for next year and beyond, and we will bring these recommendations to the delegates for consideration early in the New Year. We have done well for a relatively small independent union of 1000-1200 members, without collective bargaining, the protections or benefits of U.S. labor law, the ability to offer our members job security or healthcare or the support and resources an international union. What we do offer our members is community, camaraderie, occasional flashes of expertise, and the promise that we will fight for them. These are the things that have sustained us in a very volatile industry. They will be even more important going forward. Life is likely to be more difficult. But it will also present us with some challenges that we can turn into organizing opportunities.
Build NWU through the coming storm. Let’s have a great DA.
