Trying Times in L.A.

On Tuesday afternoon, members of the Los Angeles Times Guild received an email that might have come as a surprise after the union voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike—the first time in the newspaper’s history—just days prior. “We proposed a deal,” said the memo, a copy of which was obtained by Status. 

It’s a significant step forward for the union’s negotiations with management, which have been dragged out for three years in an effort to secure a new contract—a saga that has generated immense frustration among staffers amid a prolonged period of newsroom downsizing. Since the strike authorization vote earlier this month, the union and management have been locked in intense negotiations, which, according to the memo, appear to be yielding results that bring the parties closer to an agreement. 

As the union awaits a response from the Times’ leadership, with a meeting tentatively set for this Tuesday, the hope is that recent positive developments will allow the two sides to reach a deal without staffers having to participate in a work stoppage. A Guild representative declined to comment on the status of negotiations. 

The threat of a strike represents a crucial piece of leverage for the union, as Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong has already started selling shares of the newly created Los Angeles Times Media Group to certain investors, ahead of an anticipated initial public offering. Soon-Shiong, a pharmaceutical billionaire, is seeking investors to raise up to $500 million for the company, which includes the newspaper, LA Times Studios, NantStudios and NantGames.

The owner has sunk more than $750 million into the paper, according to the Times, but it has struggled to reach profitability, recording a loss of nearly $50 million in 2024. Few in the industry see the IPO as a cure for what ails the Times—the largest news outlet west of the Mississippi—and Soon-Shiong hasn’t made that process any easier with his efforts to manage the paper’s editorial decisions. Those include spiking an endorsement of Kamala Harris during the presidential election, leading to an exodus of opinion editors, and alienating loyal readers of the Times. Soon-Shiong’s efforts at “balance” have also included discussions of introducing a “bias meter” to stories, which has been ridiculed by many journalists inside and outside the paper; and seeking to enlist conservative columnists, among them CNN’s MAGA pundit Scott Jennings. (Based on a search of the website, Jennings’ last column for the Times ran in March.)

Meanwhile, Soon-Shiong, himself, has seemingly made a sharp rightward turn since Donald Trump’s election to a second term, pulling the opinion section with him and pressuring top editors to run stories about his biotech companies, as Status previously reported. This meddling has cost the newspaper significantly, with print subscriptions falling below 100,000 and digital subscriptions under 250,000.

After enduring multiple rounds of painful layoffs and buyouts, which pared down the Times staff and resulted in membership dropping from 450 to 200, the union appears ready to make concessions to maintain certain protections. In the proposed deal, the Guild would agree to the company’s most recent pay proposal, which includes $3,000 raises in the first contract year, and $2,000 for the next two. “In exchange, the company would drop its attempts to gut our seniority protections and leave our current layoff provisions largely as we had bargained them in the first contract,” the union wrote. 

Guild leadership is aware that the proposed deal and related concessions could be a tough sell to their membership. “This deal would mean neither side gets exactly what it wants, but we believe we could all live with it,” the memo read. “And it would wrap up two of the three major issues that remain on the table and bring us significantly closer to reaching an agreement on this contract.”

Even with the prospect of a deal on the horizon, internally “morale is at the lowest it can be,” according to a Times alum, who added that editorial staffers are “frustrated over lack of communication by top leaders.” The Times’ woes reflect the larger forces assailing the newspaper industry. In its heyday, the paper boasted more than 1,000 editorial employees, before seeing a decline in advertising, wholesale cuts and a series of ownership changes, with Soon-Shiong buying the publication in 2018.

Meanwhile, there has been a consistent exodus of top talent from the newspaper. Recent departures include climate columnist Sammy Roth and housing reporter Liam Dillon, who left for other opportunities. Metro reporter and former LAist editor-in-chief Julia Wick has also recently left the outlet. 

One person familiar with the matter noted that the union is paying close attention to how the IPO puts pressure on management, possibly making them more willing to resolve the situation. It would be much more difficult to market the IPO as an enticing investment, given the risk that comes with a unionized workplace and a looming strike. As Soon-Shiong attempts to build this new company on the back of the brand recognition of the newspaper, “I would imagine there are going to be some efforts to protect it, not let it get any more slimed” in the press, the person added. 

In this week’s episode of Power Lines: We discuss Pete Hegseth’s propaganda play at the Pentagon and how he unsuccessfully tried to turn the press corps into North Korean-styled anchors who only parrot government talking points. Then we go inside the painful cuts at NBC News and how the network gutted its diversity teams. Finally, we look at how the so-called “manosphere” comedians are turning on Donald Trump over his ICE raids, Zohran Mamdani’s move to talk to the president via Fox News, Olivia Nuzzi’s forthcoming book, and much more.

You can watch on YouTube—or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.