please follow this link to view the NewsGuild-CWA Presidential Candidates’ Debate
Category Archives: NewsGuild (TNG)
2 vying to head TNG to debate Saturday
The two contenders for presidency of The NewsGuild-CWA will square off Saturday in a live online debate, in which CWA Canada members can participate.
Members can submit questions both before and during the debate, which begins at 6:30 p.m. EDT on Oct. 26. It will be moderated by Larry Cohen, a former president of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), assisted by Howard Stanger, a labour educator at Canisius College in Buffalo, N.Y.
Send questions in advance of the debate by noon Friday, Oct. 25, to Cohen at larrycwa@gmail.com. Be sure to include your name and union Local.
The debate comes just over two weeks before in-person voting at Locals (between Nov. 12 and 17) in a re-run election for president of TNG-CWA.
The union’s election committee decided in August that the spring contest between Jon Schleuss and incumbent Bernie Lunzer had to be re-run after determining that hundreds of members had been effectively disenfranchised when mail-in ballots were sent to out-of-date addresses.
Candidate websites
Bernie Lunzer: BuildingTheGuild.org
Jon Schleuss: JonForPresident.com
Each Local determines whether to conduct in-person voting or have their members receive ballots in the mail, which have to be returned no later than Dec. 9.
Members who want to sit in on the debate need to register in advance at https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_AgCVXSyTT4KZDxlS7m8y7Q . Registrants will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar and how to submit questions. A camera or microphone is not required to view the debate, although sufficient bandwidth is necessary.
A recording of the debate will be posted on the NewsGuild’s website soon after the debate ends.
Rules governing the election are also available on the website.
Two vying for presidency of NewsGuild-CWA in spring election
President Bernie Lunzer chaired the NewsGuild’s 80th Sector Conference held in Florida at the end of January.
An activist with a new Local has emerged as challenger for leadership of The NewsGuild (TNG) that will be decided in a spring election in which all members of CWA Canada are eligible to vote.
Jon Schleuss, 31, is running against President Bernie Lunzer, 61, who has held the position since 2008.
TNG, a sector of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), is affiliated with, but has no involvement in governance of the autonomous Canadian union. (However, CWA Canada President Martin O’Hanlon is a voting member of the TNG executive board.)
Each CWA Canada Local will determine whether ballots are cast in person on location or by mail during the April 10-15 election period.
The two candidates were nominatedat TNG’s 80th Sector Conference held in Florida at the end of January. Attending as a guest, Schleuss became a TNG member in good standing immediately prior to the start of the conference.
Jon Schleuss, 31, is running against President Bernie Lunzer, 61
Schleuss was a key player in the successful 2017 campaign to organize editorial employees at the famously anti-union Los Angeles Times, where he has worked as a data and graphics reporter since 2013.
Lunzer — who worked at the St. Paul Pioneer Press for 10 years, then as administrative officer of the Minnesota Guild from 1989 to 1995, when he became TNG’s secretary-treasurer — is counting on that lengthy experience in his bid for re-election.
On his campaign website (BuildingTheGuild.org), Lunzer says that he and his team have “propelled the Guild to the highest level of organizing in years and have bargained strong contracts for new members.”
In a speech at the sector conference, Lunzer said he would continue to fight within CWA for resources to double organizing efforts, which have resulted in adding more than 2,700 members in 51 workplaces since 2015.
Speaking at the same conference, Schleuss acknowledged that “I clearly have a lot to learn, but I think that’s healthy. When we started the movement in Los Angeles two years ago, we had a lot to learn.”
According to his campaign website (JonForPresident.com), Schleuss is running for TNG’s top office “because we need a modern, energized and more democratic union that will protect our members, strengthen our contracts and grow our numbers — even as we meet the challenges of the rapidly changing media landscape.”
Schleuss, who became online editor at the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2009, later worked part-time as a reporter and weekend host at an NPR station. In addition to his current work at the Times, he serves as an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of Southern California.
CWA Canada members who want more information or have questions about the election process should speak with their Local’s executive.
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candidates were nominated
http://www.newsguild.org/mediaguild3/contested-race-emerges-in-election-of-tng-cwa-president/
organize editorial employees at the famously anti-union Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times newsroom votes to go union amid growing corporate tumult
BuildingTheGuild.org
JonForPresident.com