Settlement Reached in NLRB Complaint Against Dow Jones

The Independent Association of Publishers’ Employees (IAPE), Local 1096 of The NewsGuild-CWA, is pleased to report an Unfair Labor Practice charge the union filed against Dow Jones in February of 2021 has finally been settled. The almost-year-long dispute was scheduled to proceed to trial tomorrow morning.

The IAPE charge led to the National Labor Relations Board filing a complaint against Dow Jones last September, stating, “Since about October 2, 2020, (Dow Jones) has failed and refused to bargain collectively and in good faith with the Union.”

Under the terms of the settlement, Dow Jones will be required to post notices confirming that it “will not, upon request, refuse to bargain in good faith with IAPE as the exclusive collective-bargaining representative of our employees in the above-described unit regarding mandatory subjects of bargaining concerning certain remote working conditions related to the impact of the COVID epidemic on your terms and conditions of employment.”

The posting also confirms that Dow Jones will not interfere with employee rights under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. Physical notices must be posted on bulletin boards at Dow Jones offices in New York, Princeton, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington. Electronic notices must be posted for 60 days on Dow Jones’s intranet, including a news feed item on its Coronavirus Microsite.

“This is an important victory for IAPE,” said union president, Jodi Green. “Throughout this long process, we have shown that our union is tenacious in enforcing our legal rights and the rights of all our members.”

“We’re pleased with the terms of this settlement, and that now we can focus on trying to negotiate much-needed assistance for our members who have been working from their homes since the beginning of this pandemic. It is our hope that Dow Jones will take this opportunity to reflect on its approach to the union, and begin to deal with us in good faith and treat us as equal partners, as the law requires. We have many important issues to discuss, including the continued impact of Covid on our return to the office and, of course, our negotiations for our new collective agreement later this year.”

Local 1096, representing Dow Jones employees across the United States and in Canada—including staff at newsrooms of The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch and other Dow Jones products—filed its Unfair Labor Practice charge last year alleging Dow Jones representatives had failed to negotiate in good faith over union proposals to provide pandemic benefits and relief to employees.