The Athletic Canada workers unionize with CWA Canada

Workers at sports news outlet The Athletic Canada have filed to unionize with media union CWA Canada as part of a cross-border campaign.

The union filed with the Canada Industrial Relations Board today after a majority of more than 30 staff signed union cards. We also plan to file with the Ontario Labour Relations Board later today. 

The workers are based in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, B.C., and Manitoba. About 200 of their colleagues at The Athletic in the U.S. have also applied for certification with our sister union, the NewsGuild-CWA.

“We are passionate about the work we produce at The Athletic and the team that makes it possible,” the workers said in a Mission Statement (see full statement below.) 

“We take pride in the reputation for excellent sports journalism that we have helped build here. That is why we are taking the steps to unionize our workplace. By organizing, we want to ensure that continues, and that The Athletic will be an employer that supports us, treats us well, compensates us fairly for the work that we do, and values our individual perspectives in a safe and respectful work environment.”

CWA Canada President Carmel Smyth hailed the news as a great way to start the new year.

“We are happy to welcome these talented and determined workers into the union. Together, we are going to work to improve their salaries and opportunities.”

The Athletic is a subscription-based sports journalism department of The New York Times. It provides national and local coverage in 47 American and Canadian cities, as well as the United Kingdom. The Athletic focuses on a mix of long-form journalism, original reporting, and in-depth analysis.

CWA Canada is the country’s only all-media union, representing about 6,000 workers at the CBC, The Canadian Press, and newspapers and other companies coast to coast. 

The Athletic Canada – Mission Statement

The Athletic is unique among Canadian sports media, boasting a wide array of talented writers, editors, producers, and behind-the-scenes employees across the country, unaffiliated with the organizations we cover. 

Our scope, independence, and focus on excellence has made us an important and successful voice in a challenging industry. We are passionate about the work we produce at The Athletic and the team that makes it possible. We take pride in the reputation for excellent sports journalism that we have helped build here. That is why we are taking the steps to unionize our workplace.

By organizing, we want to ensure that continues, and that The Athletic will be an employer that supports us, treats us well, compensates us fairly for the work that we do, and values our individual perspectives in a safe and respectful work environment.

We are committed to ensuring that The Athletic is an inclusive workplace that prioritizes diversity, mental health and the wellbeing of its employees. We strive to be a place that continues to develop talent and provide opportunity while also being a home for some of the most experienced and trusted voices in sports media. We want to cover the biggest as well as the most overlooked stories in sports.

We want to have a work environment that allows our colleagues to do their best work and meet the high standards placed on them. We want to ensure that those standards are applied fairly, and that reasonable and collaborative decisions are made around staffing, scheduling and performance expectations.

We want to ensure we have a voice in helping guide the future of the company in Canada and to ensure we continue to make improvements with respect to the diversity of our staff, the evaluation of our work, and the salary decisions that are driven by those evaluations. Given that our work is regularly being used in the print and digital editions of the New York Times, we believe our relationship with the company should reflect that. As employees who fall under the New York Times banner, we believe we should be treated like our colleagues across the company. 

Crucially, we want to maintain the spirit of The Athletic that drew us here in the first place, an outlet at which we are proud to work.

Most of all, we want to help ensure this remains a tremendous place to work. We feel our input is incredibly valuable in that process. We want to make sure The Athletic remains one of the best places to work, both personally and professionally, in all of Canadian media.

Signees:
Arpon Basu
Harman Dayal
Richard Deitsch
Jeff Domet
Thomas Drance
Kamila Hinkson
Joshua Kloke
Eric Koreen
Dom Luszczyszyn
Sarah Jean Maher 
Kristen Malik
Sean McIndoe
Julian McKenzie
Daniel Nugent-Bowman
Dan Robson
Hailey Salvian
Ambika Sharma
Jonas Siegel
Lukas Weese
Scott Wheeler