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 […]
End the War and Humanitarian Crisis in Yemen
New York, NY March 13 — Tonight NWU joined with the Arab-American Association of NY (AAANY) and the Arab-American Family Support Center (AAFSC) for a panel on ending the war and humanitarian crisis in Yemen. The event was also sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace, Brooklyn Peace and the International Committee of the Professional Staff […]
NWU Reaches Final Settlement Agreement with Ebony
CHICAGO, IL – The National Writers Union has reached a final settlement agreement with the Ebony Media Organization and CVG Group LLC (which acquired Ebony magazine in 2016), over the magazine’s failure to pay freelance writers, editors and designers for contracted and published work. This settlement covers 45 freelancers who are collectively owed $80,000 by […]
NWU and Nautilus Settle $60,000 Non-Payment Grievance
New York City, January 31 – Today the NWU announced that we have a signed settlement with Nautilus magazine resolving a non-payment grievance with twenty Nautilus freelancers. In mid-December, the freelancers filed the grievance with NWU for help in seeking payment of over $60,000 owed to them for articles published in the National Magazine Award-winning […]
President’s Column – Feb. Newsletter
Happy New Year and I hope you were all able to participate in the recent Women’s Marches. In NYC, the numbers were much larger than the stated 200,000, and thousands of people never got to actually join the march because the crowds were so big and due to NYPD crowd control. I was one, who […]
RIP Sister Ursula K. Le Guin
It is with great sorrow and the deepest respect that we bid farewell to Sister Ursula K. Le Guin, a ground-breaking author, radical, feminist and revolutionary as well as a literary giant. What’s more, she was one of us, a member of NWU. She was the author of more than 20 novels, a dozen books […]
Rally to Support Writers Fired at DNAinfo and Gothamist
NEW YORK, NY (November 6, 2017) – “We come not to mourn, but to organize.” That’s how Writers Guild of America East (WGAE) Executive Director, Lowell Peterson kicked off today’s rally in support of DNAinfo and Gothamist writers who were fired after voting to join the union. Right-wing billionaire-owner Joe Ricketts announced that he was shutting down […]
Ebony Freelancers and NWU Get to Know Each Other
On November 1, lawyers for NWU and the Ebony Media Organization finally met in a Cook County courtroom. At issue is the $80,000 owed to the 48 freelancers who are being represented by their union. The following night, about a dozen Ebony freelancers and some NWU reps met and got to know each other at […]
Writer Alert—UPTOWN Magazine—October 18 2017
UPTOWN Magazine–a national publication with regional editions in Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. –has not been paying all of its freelance writers. Some writers remain unpaid since October, 2014. Together five writers, now represented by the National Writers Union, are owed $18,825 for work published by UPTOWN over the past three years. The NWU has tried repeatedly […]
NWU is the sole provider of IFJ Press Passes to freelance journalists in the U.S.