SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – A federal board says the Santa Barbara News-Press committed unfair labor practices during a union-organizing campaign and has ordered the paper's publisher to reinstate eight fired journalists.
The National Labor Relations Board's unanimous ruling Thursday largely upheld a 2007 decision by an administrative law judge that Ampersand Publishing LLC had appealed.
Newsroom employees voted to form a union after most top editors quit in 2006 to protest the owner's alleged interference with news coverage.
The eight fired reporters complained to the NLRB that they had been wrongfully terminated for union activity and other reasons.
The newspaper said in a statement that it has prevailed in previous court challenges to NLRB decisions and expects to do so again.
