Editorial staffers at Baltimore’s WYPR are petitioning management for union representation, according to a June 6 release from broadcast union SAG-AFTRA, which seeks to represent them.
A majority of editorial staff delivered a union petition to management June 3, and the National Labor Relations Board received a petition June 6, according to the release. Management has not yet acknowledged the petition.
“We all believe in the value of public radio, as well as WYPR’s mission to produce high-quality journalism,” the release read. “We want to see the station improve and better serve listeners across the state. We believe that a unionized editorial staff, working with station management and its board is the best way to do that.”
WYPR is the latest in a string of pubmedia stations where staffers have considered union representation. Staffers at Chicago Public Media voted to join SAG-AFTRA in December 2013, in an election conducted by NLRB, and employees at San Diego’s KPBS joined in November. SAG-AFTRA also represents employees at NPR, Los Angeles’s KPCC, San Francisco’s KQED, New York’s WNYC and KPLU in Tacoma, Wash.