Dear Colleagues

There’s not a person in our newsroom who doesn’t understand what the Orlando Sentinel has endured in recent years. Whether you’ve been here for decades and hung on through repeated rounds of layoffs and buyouts, or you walked in yesterday and saw all the empty desks and abandoned office space, you know that the people who manage our company long ago stopped cutting fat and started sawing bone. 

And all of us know the potential threat we face now as Alden Global Capital sharpens its scythe. 

Today, we fight back. Together. 

We informed management this morning of our intention to unionize as the Sentinel Guild. About 78 percent of our staff has signed cards in support of our union. Every team and every generation in our newsroom is represented in this effort — all of us united by our love of local journalism and our commitment to protecting it.  

We want to express our appreciation to Nancy Meyer and Julie Anderson. Their leadership reminds us all what a powerful force for good the Orlando Sentinel is in our community. And many of us have wonderful relationships with our managers and editors, who are as much our friends and mentors as our bosses. 

This is not about them. 

This is about pushing back against owners who treat their employees like numbers on a spreadsheet rather than people hoping to build careers, raise families and retire with dignity. It’s about pushing back against executives who run this business as if we produce disposable widgets rather than a public service. It’s about pushing back against the kind of people who once gave us Avido and Tronc — and who may yet do far worse. 

Our union — and it is our union — will fight for deserved raises, dependable healthcare and job security. We will fight for stronger parental leave policies, opportunities for professional development, and a more racially, ethnically and culturally diverse newsroom that allows us to better tell the stories of the communities we cover. 

And we will fight to ensure that every strategic decision our company makes is anchored around preserving and strengthening local journalism. 

We are hopeful Tribune Publishing will choose to voluntarily recognize our union, as it has done so at many of its newspapers. If it does come down to an election, we are ready. Please don’t hesitate to ask questions, offer suggestions or share concerns with us as we move forward. Everyone’s perspective is important.

Know this: Regardless of whether you join this movement, our union will fight just as hard for you as it does for anyone else. We will build power together. 

We are the Orlando Sentinel.

In solidarity, 

The Sentinel Guild Organizing Committee