Appeals court sides with newspaper in labor fight
Headline Legal News
A federal appeals court on Tuesday sided with the publisher of the Santa Barbara News-Press in a long-running labor dispute between the newspaper and reporters who were fired after they complained about its editorial practices.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the newspaper's publisher was protected by the First Amendment when it dismissed eight reporters and disciplined others who claimed the owner was interfering with news coverage.
The reporters claimed they were illegally fired for union activity and legitimate complaints about their terms of employment. But the court found the dispute was all about editorial control.
"The First Amendment affords a publisher — not a reporter — absolute authority to shape a newspaper's content," Judge Stephen Williams wrote for a three-judge panel.
The ruling stems from a dispute between Ampersand Publishing LLC and employees that began in 2006. Nearly every top editor at the paper quit in protest over what they said was owner Wendy McCaw's meddling in news coverage.
Newsroom employees later voted to form a union, and they have been fighting with the newspaper since then over bargaining rights.
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If you were injured in a work-related accident and have been researching workers’ compensation, you may have seen it described as a “no-fault” system. One of the most important things to understand about the workers’ compensation system in Illinois is that it is based on a “no-fault” system. What does this mean, exactly?
Most employers in Illinois are required by law to have workers’ compensation insurance. And the workers' compensation in Illinois is a “no-fault” system, which means that any worker who has been hurt on the job is entitled to workers' compensation benefits. If you have been hurt on the job, you are entitled to workers’ compensation benefits no matter whose fault the accident was.
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