Nearly 50 years after a strike that ended union representation at the Madison Capital Times, the newspaper’s eight newsroom employees announced last week they have joined a union and are seeking a contract.
Ashley Rodriguez, a features writer and spokesperson for the union drive, said in an interview that the staffers have asked Publisher and President Paul Fanlund, Editor Mark Treinen and other newsroom managers to voluntarily recognize The NewsGuild-CWA as their union.
“We were received very professionally and cordially,” Rodriguez said.
Asked Tuesday about his response to the union petition, Fanlund said in an email message, “No comment at this time. Will let you know when we have something to say.”
Rodriguez said the union organizing campaign wasn’t in reaction to any particular developments at the newspaper.
“This isn’t about one thing, this isn’t about one person. This is about exercising our rights and knowing that we’re stronger together,” she said.
Since its conversion in 2008 from a daily evening paper to a digital outlet with a weekly free tabloid edition, the Capital Times now has formally adopted its longstanding nickname, the Cap Times.
Rodriguez said the union effort was in keeping with the news organization’s heritage as a champion of progressive values in Madison since the Capital Times was founded in 1917 by William T. Evjue, a former managing editor and business manager for the Wisconsin State Journal.
“He was angered by the State Journal’s editorials attacking Robert M. ‘Fighting Bob’ LaFollette, who he considered a hero,” states a history the Capital Times posted that was archived in 2007.
“The history of the Cap Times is to be a progressive voice — the voice of Madison, representing the voices of people who aren’t heard,” said Rodriguez. On its editorial pages, the paper has been a strong supporter of labor unions.
“I think this has been like a desire to embody how we see our role as reporters within our own system,” she said. “If we’re going to embody the mission of William Evjue, championing people’s rights and being the voice of the community, that has to exist internally as well.”
Rodriguez joined the staff in January 2025, but she said reporters had been interested in joining a union for years before she arrived, and helped produce the energy that led her and her colleagues to formally organize in the last year. Staff support for the union has been unanimous, she said.
“For us just the biggest thing is that local journalism is so vital to a healthy democracy and strong communities and the reporters that deliver that news just want to live in their communities and feel like their work is being valued as well,” Rodriguez said.
Since the 1940s, the Capital Times and the Wisconsin State Journal have shared business operations, forming a partnership, Madison Newspapers Inc., which owned the presses and conducted other business operations for both papers.
In 1977, MNI installed new printing technology, laying off typesetting employees and cutting wages of the remaining printing staff. The printing unions struck, joined by the newsroom unions of both newspapers.
The striking employees put out an independent paper, first weekly and later daily, the Madison Press Connection, which lasted until 1980, and the strike was settled in 1982 with a $1.5 million payment to the strikers. The unions were all decertified.
Editorially, the Capital Times “had always supported the labor movement,” said Phil Haslanger, one of the reporters who joined the strike. Up to that point, when the Newspaper Guild represented newsroom employees, “there had always been spirited negotiations between the Guild and, at that time, William Evjue, but they found a way to make it work.”
That made the dispute especially controversial. “Here you had a paper that was progressive, liberal, involved in this very complicated labor situation,” Haslanger said.
Haslanger was one of five employees who went back to the paper as part of the settlement agreement. Under the editor, Elliott Maraniss, “There was a real effort on the part of the Cap Times at the end of the strike to gracefully reintegrate those of us who had been in the strike,” he said.
In 2008, the Capital Times went from being a daily evening paper to a primarily online outlet, first with two free weekly tabloid editions, later reduced to one.
The union campaign also echoes the success of campaigns that have led to unions at several digital news organizations, including Wisconsin Watch and ProPublica.
Both the Cap Times and the State Journal work out of the same building on Madison’s Southwest Side. Rodriguez said the unionizing effort involves only the staff of the Cap Times, owned by the Evjue Foundation, and not the employees of the State Journal, which is part of Lee Enterprises.
“We hope that management voluntarily recognizes us,” she said. “We think that recognizing the union would be in line with carrying out the values of the Cap Times.”
