Nearly 300 Reuters journalists went on strike Thursday after they accused management of dragging their feet in union contract negotiations. It’s the first walkout for Reuters journalists in 30 years, and it comes nearly two years after their last contract expired. “While we reporters are called away from our families in the middle of dinner, something we gladly do for the job, Reuters executives sit in the comfort of their home offices managing the profits we bring in for the company,” Julio-César Chávez, a video reporter at Reuters, said in a NewsGuild statement. “I’m walking out today because our work is what powers the success of Reuters, and we deserve to be compensated adequately for it.” The strike is expected to last for 24 hours, and it was accompanied with a picket line outside the news agency’s Times Square office on Thursday morning. Reuters said in a statement that the strike’s “brief disruption” wouldn’t impact its services and it would “work with the Guild committee to settle on mutually agreeable terms.”
