"DNAinfo and Gothamist Are Shut Down After Vote to Unionize", 2 Nov 2017

Reporters and editors in the combined newsroom of DNAinfo and Gothamist...vote[d] to join a union... On Thursday, they lost their jobs... Joe Ricketts, the...founder of TD Ameritrade who owned the sites, announc[ed] the decision,...prais[ing] them for reporting “tens of thousands of stories that have informed, impacted and inspired millions of people."... [but] “DNAinfo is, at the end of the day, a business, and businesses need to be economically successful if they are to endure.”... 

For DNAinfo and Gothamist, the staff’s vote to join the Writers Guild of America East was just part of the decision to close the company. A spokeswoman for DNAinfo said...“The decision by the editorial team to unionize is simply another competitive obstacle making it harder for the business to be financially successful.” The decision puts 115 people out of work, both at the New York operations that unionized and at those in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington that did not... The union said in a statement: “It is no secret that threats were made to these workers during the organizing drive. The Guild will be looking at all of our potential areas of recourse and we will aggressively pursue our new members’ rights.”