Journalists & Editors vote to unionize - Owner shuts down the business

quote:

---

"Today, I've made the difficult decision to discontinue publishing DNAinfo and Gothamist. Reaching this decision wasn't easy, and it wasn't one I made lightly," said Ricketts, who founded TD Ameritrade and is worth a little more than $2 billion according to Forbes.

He added that DNAinfo, which was founded in 2009, "is, at the end of the day, a business, and businesses need to be economically successful if they are to endure."

---

quote:

---

Last week, reporters and editors there were celebrating a successful vote to form a union. The efforts to organize began in the spring after DNAinfo bought Gothamist.

But Ricketts refused to recognize the union, which meant that the National Labor Relations Board had to conduct an official vote. In September, Ricketts explained his opposition to unions on his blog.

"I believe unions promote a corrosive us-against-them dynamic that destroys the esprit de corps businesses need to succeed," he wrote. "And that corrosive dynamic makes no sense in my mind where an entrepreneur is staking his capital on a business that is providing jobs and promoting innovation."

Nevertheless, workers overwhelmingly voted to join the Writers Guild last week

---

quote:

---

Staff members were apparently floored by the announcement.

"It was literally like the daily flow of the newsroom came to a screeching halt," said Scott Heins, a photojournalist at Gothamist. "It was just an absolutely normal day at the office and then someone said 'oh my god the email' and then everyone checked their work email. Some of my colleagues burst into tears really quickly, others shouted. It was immediate shock when we got the email."

---