All the union cards fit to print

When riches arise from humble beginnings, it may be the just reward for raw ambition and competitiveness, or fortuitous or random luck. The face value of phenomenal success is sufficient to impress most people without their inquiring further into its genesis.  

Publisher Victoria Schneps is a powerhouse, mogul and juggernaut, all on a slow day. She started with nothing and has wrought an empire of many dozens of newspapers in New York City, among them the Long Island Press, amNew York, The Villager, the TimesLedger chain, the Brooklyn Paper, Dan's Papers, Noticias, Caribbean Life and Gay City News. She has also established a high-profile presence online and in social media.

Her first publication, Queens Courier, was founded around 40 years ago with a $250 investment and the proverbial "prayer and a dream." Every Thursday I used to pick up my free copy from a bank or diner to check whether they printed my letter, so that I could rush to Staples to have it laminated as a keepsake for my heirs.

Each publication retains a distinctive character that suits and reflects its readership. Together, more than 600,000 copies are printed weekly, and their websites total around 10 million views monthly.

Before she rose to prominence as a businesswoman, Schneps was an organizer and activist for the rights of children with developmental disabilities. Her daughter resided at the Willowbrook State School in Staten Island, an institution whose abuses got nationwide attention in the 1970s and was subsequently closed, due largely to the investigative reporting of Geraldo Rivera, early in his career.

Schneps not only dismantled an institution, but a culture of exploitation. She founded Life's WORC, which provides group homes and provides comprehensive services to thousands. 

She appears to be a person of high ideals.

That's why, even at this early stage when the facts aren't all in yet, I'm optimistic that she and her son, CEO/Publisher of Schneps Media, will be welcoming, or at least not resistant, to the recent notification by an overwhelming percentage of participating staffers, of their intention to unionize.

The tone, so far, appears temperate and non-confrontational. Though not antagonistic, the action is inherently adversarial.

Given Mayor Mamdani's ideological leanings, his support is no surprise, but the workers' campaign is justified on the merits by any democratic-minded person's reckoning.

The Schneps Media Union will be affiliated with Local 1096 of the Independent Association of Publishers' Employees, and the News Guild of New York, which is a subsidiary of the Communication Workers of America (CWA).

Any negotiated contract will inevitably cut into their profit margin. The new relationship between unionized workers and Schneps Media will have major ramifications for independent journalism.

It will also test the sincerity of management's liberal slant on other issues. 

Sometimes, abstract values don't translate well into the vernacular of hard currency.

The editorial workers at Schneps Media, many of them relative rookies like other reporters for smaller outlets, must increasingly take on the responsibility for honest and reliable news reporting, because the New York Times and others, of both the left and right, have largely abrogated their integrity and objectivity and lost credibility.

Quality, community-based independent journalism, is a bulwark against not merely their rivals in the industry, but the freedom-stifling government. They are less prone to editorial demagoguery and more likely to report on stories like the Brooklyn bakery that barred sales to a customer because he was Jewish, or the assault against Caitlin Clark on the professional women's basketball court.

But even diligent crusaders cannot live on idealism and latte alone.

There must be a dramatic and locked-in boost in wages, health and other benefits, and promotional mobility. Duty assignments need to be streamlined, and editorial standards revisited with staff input.  Some shared decision-making would hardly be an existential threat to the enterprise.

According to Wikipedia, a former Schneps reporter alleged that "the Schneps owners forced them to write sponsored content, while shielding advertisers and local officials from critical coverage." A former editor ostensibly observed that Schneps Media is "less of a news company than a promotions company."

If there is any truth in this, it would not be different from certain radio talk shows in New York whose advertisers are billed and are interviewed as experts in their fields, such as lawyers, plastic surgeons and security service providers, without the host mentioning their not coincidental sponsorship.

Victoria Schneps may not be quite a society doyenne of the Hamptons, but she holds charity fundraisers there and hobnobs with a wide circle of prominent and some eminent folks. By doing so, she has in a sense parlayed her business acumen into humanitarian goals. 

She also holds an annual event, attended by over 800 business leaders, that honors "power women" entrepreneurs, and civic, cultural, political and religious leaders, and "Best in Boro" and "Best in Long Island" competitions for every imaginable business, from hair salons, to martial studios, to pet grooming.

Every Schneps publication I have seen, and I've sampled most of them, includes a multitude of state-of-the art graphically designed, attention-grabbing advertisements that surely must generate a fortune in earnings. They could satisfy all the demands of the aspiring unionists without breaking a financial sweat.  If they do so, it will be a tribute to management, the workers, and the labor movement.

They must meet the challenge and share their wealth with their wealth of talent on staff. "Not In My Backyard" (NIMBY) is an acronym describing some people's advocacy for things like homeless shelters in local neighborhoods as long as it's not their own.

Time will tell whether it can also apply to anti-unionization at pro-labor institutions.

As the attempted unionization at Schneps Media is putting the sincerity of their owners' pro-labor stance to the test, a similar effort is meeting resistance from a nominal ally of labor: the New York City Council.

Thirty-two of its unpaid interns are seeking a living wage and health insurance benefits. One of them was fired for having the effrontery to ask, politely and through channels.

Ironically, she worked for the chair of the Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection, who insisted he was unaware of the retaliatory union-busting. Council Speaker Julie Menin made the same claim, thereby washing their hands of the consequences of bad optics with the soap of ignorance.

Journalism, in its pure and neutral practice, has become an anachronism, as has the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government as guarantors of the rule of law.  They that were democracy's torch are now torching it.