For ten months Bay Area News Group (BANG) executives threatened journalists with pay freezes and cuts in benefits if they organized a unit for collective bargaining on pay, benefits and work conditions. Despite an anti-union campaign by management, non-supervisory news workers voted in June to form a unit of the Northern California Media Workers Guild.

Less than one month later, at least 20 journalists who had been visibly supportive of organizing a union were summarily terminated.

Last week the Guild filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board, calling the firings retaliatory and citing other anti-union actions against the newly formed unit.

The 230-member Bay Area News Group East Bay (BANG-EB) bargaining unit includes the Oakland Tribune and other East Bay papers, as well as the San Mateo County Times on the peninsula. Among those terminated was Sara Steffens, newly elected chair of the unit and one of the main Guild organizers.

"I think they wanted me out of the newsroom," Steffans said. "They wanted to keep me from continuing to engage co-workers as we push for our first contract and they hoped this would send a message to scare people away from further union activity. But they made a big mistake -- so far it's only made our newsroom understand why it's important to have a contract to protect us."

Read More | Bay Area Guild Unit Files NLRB Charge Over Layoffs | One Big Bang (Union Website)