By an overwhelming majority, editorial staffers at KCUR have agreed to unionize and join the Communication Workers of America.
More than 30 of the 39 eligible employees voted in favor of unionization. Among those eligible to vote were non-supervisory employees at Classical KC, as well as KCUR-based staffers for the Kansas News Service, the Midwest Newsroom and Harvest Public Media. They are all employees of KCUR and the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Eligible employees voted in an online, secret ballot over a two-day period that ended at midnight Thursday. The Missouri Board of Mediation, a state agency that handles public sector union elections, oversaw the election.
The new collective bargaining unit will enter into contract negotiations with the University of Missouri, which holds the license to KCUR.
“We will work to secure more stable working conditions, competitive pay and benefits, and enduring job protections in an increasingly volatile media market,” members of KCUR’s four-person union organizing team said in a news release.
Sarah Morris, KCUR’s general manager, said in an email that the Missouri Board of Mediation requires a 10-day waiting period before the results are certified. After that, she said, negotiations could begin with the University of Missouri’s Office of Employee and Labor Relations.
Morris said that the missions of KCUR and Classical KC, the 24-hour music station, “will continue under the newly formed union.”
In emails to union-eligible staffers in the weeks before the election, two UMKC officials said union representation would create a more formal negotiating process, but would likely not lead to higher pay or greater job security.
Megan Gonzalez, associate vice chancellor, and Christen Melvin, UMKC’s human resources business partner for KCUR, said that without a union KCUR staff members could discuss pay, benefits and other work conditions with their supervisors, the station’s managers and UMKC’s human resources office.
“We suggest this approach as it provides the opportunity for us to work directly together to resolve issues and concerns,” they said. “We would appreciate this opportunity to support KCUR and to do that we would ask you to vote no in the upcoming election.”
Savannah Hawley-Bates, a reporter at KCUR and a member of the union organizing committee, said the vote showed that staffers believe unionization will make a difference.
“We have seen time and time again, in the public radio sector and elsewhere, that unionization has brought better job security and better pay and benefits,” she said.
KCUR, which aired its first broadcast in 1957, is the latest of several NPR affiliates to unionize. The flagship National Public Radio operation, headquartered in Washington, D.C., unionized under the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists more than 40 years ago. Employees at St. Louis Public Radio voted to form a union in June 2023 and are still working to finalize a contract with the University of Missouri.
The vote to unionize at KCUR comes as NPR stations locally and across the country have struggled to keep up with rapid changes that affect audience numbers and revenues — everything from fewer people commuting to work to a vast universe of competing podcasts aimed at digital audiences.
In their news release, union organizers at KCUR referred to financial pressures, as well as the dynamics of being part of Missouri’s public university system.
“Our issues with the university and our current financial reality, which create a growing reliance on employees to do more for less, have caused many within this organization to fear for their future in it,” the release said.
Last year, KCUR raised about a third of its revenue from listeners, 29% from grants and institutional gifts, 21% from corporate sponsorships and 15% from special events and philanthropic donations, according to the station’s 2023 Year in Review report. Two-thirds of what the station raises is spent on news gathering, programming and production, the report states.
The annual report does not cite the total revenues available, but Gonzalez referred to a tight financial situation in a communication she sent to KCUR staffers on July 18.
“Right now, KCUR is limited in some of its employment actions due to budget constraints,” her memo states. “Current budget realities at KCUR highlight the need to promote long-term sustainability and growth. A union cannot change budget constraints, realities, or the need for long-term sustainability and growth.”
Even with union representation, the station would need additional revenue before it considers higher pay for staffers, the memo said.
The difficult media landscape — and concerns among employees about pay, benefits and job security — extends to other nonprofit and for-profit news organizations. Journalists at The Kansas City Star formed the Kansas City News Guild in 2021, and editorial employees at Kansas City PBS have unionized with the National Association of Broadcasters and Technicians-Communications Workers of America.
In a memo, Gonzalez and Melvin said they did not believe that unionization would lead to greater job security for KCUR staffers.
They noted that Missouri is an “employment-at-will” state, which in general means that employers and employees are free to terminate a job arrangement at any time.
Hawley-Bates, in an interview, said union organizers were confident that collective bargaining would create better protections for staffers as well as incentives to remain in their jobs.
“We want people to feel secure that they can have a long-lasting career in public radio,” she said.
Editor's note: This story was written by freelance journalist Barbara Shelly and edited by Scott Canon, editor-in-chief of The Beacon, a non-profit news outlet based in Kansas City. Neither is involved in the unionization effort or a manager at KCUR. Shelly has freelanced for the station. Canon previously was an editor at the Kansas News Service based at KCUR.
