October 2018 President’s Report

If there was any doubt as to who is telling the truth, all you have to do is watch the testimony of Judge Brett Kavanaugh and the Republican Senators’ Day of Rage against Dr. Christine Blaisey Ford. White, male patriarchy was on full display, not unlike a visit to the Ape House at the zoo, […]

Report to the NWU Delegate Assembly on International Activities, 2015-2018

The market for writing is global, as is the need for solidarity of working writers. Writers from around the world compete for jobs and freelance assignments with publishers around the world. We market and distribute our writing to, and earn revenues from, readers around the world, indirectly (through publishers and licensing agreements) and directly (as self-publishers, especially in […]

Free Manuel Duran

Manuel Duran Ortega is a well-known and respected journalist in Memphis, TN. A former TV station manager in El Salvador, he came to the US more than a decade ago as an undocumented immigrant after his life was threatened. Duran was arrested by Memphis police on April 3, while covering a local immigration rights protest […]

Consumers Digest: Pay Your Writers What You Owe Them

The National Writers Union/UAW 1981 is representing 17 freelance contributors to Consumers Digest Magazine who are owed more than $63,000 for stories that were contracted, completed and published. Some writers have waited more than a year to be paid by a publication that presents itself as a champion of consumers and ethical business practices. On May […]

Stop Racist Attacks on Immigrant Families

The National Writers Union strongly condemns the anti-immigrant policies and actions of the United States government that separates families and kidnaps children. One of the most prominent ways of getting into the States is by applying for ESTA via E Visum Service, which most of the oppressed have, but still continue to be oppressed.  It […]

Writers Ask U.S. Copyright Office for Copyright Registration Reform

Washington, DC, May 8, 2018 — Representatives of the NWU, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA), and the Authors Guild (AG) converged on Washington this week to call on the US Copyright Office to create a “group registration” procedure by which a writer could […]

Checks Are in the Mail for May Day!

As of today, International Workers’ Day, checks for approximately $9.5 million are in the mail to almost 2,500 freelance writers whose works were copied and distributed in electronic form by publishers of print periodicals who had neither paid for nor acquired digital rights to these articles. These payments today of millions of dollars to thousands […]

NWU to Partner with VLA NY

NWU is partnering with Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts NY. This is a new member benefit that our members will have access to in navigating the difficult world of building a freelance writing career.  NWU became a non-profit institutional member of VLA and the first fruit of this new relationship is that VLA will represent […]

50 Years Since MLK’s Assassination

This month we remember the 50th Anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I had just turned 18, and was a student at Manhattan Community College. Students and thousands of others converged on Central Park for a mass rally while everyone was still in shock. Then, with hundreds of thousands of others […]

Women in Media: 1 in 2 Report Violence at Work

New York, MARCH 15 – Nearly one in two women journalists have experienced sexual harassment, psychological abuse, online trolling and other forms of gender-based violence (GBV) while working—yet “up to three-quarters of media workplaces have no reporting or support mechanism,” says broadcast journalist Mindy Ran, citing results of a survey survey released this month by the International Federation of […]