Los Angeles Times Newsroom Voting on Whether to Unionize<br />Management typically counters efforts to organize employees, but many in The Times newsroom — especially against the backdrop of already tense relations — said they felt<br />that those in charge have been unduly aggressive in the attempt to thwart the union effort<br />Newsroom employees at The Los Angeles Times began casting ballots Thursday on whether to form a union, in what<br />they believe is the first time journalists have held a union vote in the newspaper’s 136-year history.<br />Workers — who are calling for more competitive salaries, equitable pay for women<br />and minorities, more generous benefits and improved working conditions — began voting at 10 a.m. in a first-floor community room at The Times headquarters in downtown Los Angeles and at the company’s offices in Orange County.<br />The union vote affirms something of a shift at The Times, where a bombing by union organizers in 1910 helped shape a historically anti-union stance.<br />A dispute between The Times and the Walt Disney Company also raised tensions between the paper’s employees<br />and its new top management, with some employees questioning how Mr. D’Vorkin had handled the paper’s response.<br />People familiar with the process said they believed the organizing effort had the votes to join the NewsGuild, which represents 25,000 reporters, editors, photojournalists<br />and other media workers at news organizations across the United States.
