Service & Solidarity Spotlight: Editorial Workers at New York’s Schneps Media Launch Union

Working people across the United States regularly step up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our Service & Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.

An overwhelming majority of the eligible staff of the Schneps Media Network announced the creation of a union the Independent Association of Publishers’ Employees (IAPE), Local 1096 of The NewsGuild-Communications Workers of America.

Schneps Media Network is a series of hyperlocal news outlets spanning New York City and Long Island. Approximately 30 staffers across the editorial department work in New York City at amNY, amNY Law, Brooklyn Paper, The Bronx Times, Brownstoner, QNS, Noticias, New York Family, Staten Island Parent and Caribbean Life and on Long Island at the Long Island Press and Dan’s Papers, among others.

“Schneps Media reporters can do a lot with a little, but we shouldn’t have to. A union contract will improve our working and living conditions, making it easier to do work that matters. With better pay, benefits, resources and editorial standards, we’ll be better equipped to do what we love, providing hyperlocal news to the communities that rely on us. A rising tide lifts all ships,” said Kirstyn Brendlen, a digital editor at Brooklyn Paper.

The workers are seeking to secure competitive wages, sustainable working conditions and to strengthen the news organization’s mission of providing objective local journalism in the public interest.