Employees in two key areas of the day to day operations of the Virgin Islands Daily News appear headed for unionization. A vote to organize labor at the paper was held on St. Thomas Tuesday and on St. Croix Thursday. The results suggest that majority of the daily publication's production staff favors unionization. But things are a bit less clear regarding the news staff.
United Steelworkers President Randolph Allen released the results of the two-day voting Thursday.
"In the production department, 39 of 53 eligible ballots were cast. Of that number, 30 voted to unionize, one staff member was opposed and there were eight challenged ballots," he said.
The next step, according to Allen, will be for the employees to come together to agree on terms of the contracts. After that formal contract documents will be forwarded to the paper’s management.
"This will be a proposal of sorts," Allen said.
In the news department, the outcome remains a bit uncertain, Allen said, after the vote was taken today. Out of 24 eligible employees, 11 votes against the development of a unionized work force, 9 were in support of unionization and there were three challenged ballots. Allen said he is optimistic that the union vote in the News Department will swing in favor of the unionization.
"The three challenged ballots are from those employees who want to be in the union," he said this evening.
As regards the firing of reporter Will Jones, Allen threatens that unfair labor practice charges will be brought against the Daily News.
He accused the paper of terminating Jones as a means of intimidating the workers into voting against the move to unionize.
Jones was canned this weekend. But while some suggest that the firing was motivated by his support for the union movement, the daily paper has said that it will not discuss personnel maters.