Chicago Tribune Journalists Push for Contract Deal, Accuse Hedge Fund…

The Chicago Tribune Freedom Center printing complex is pictured in a file photo. (WTTW News)

Tribune Publishing journalists plan to picket and rally Saturday outside Tribune Tower, their former professional home, accusing the hedge fund that owns the company of brutally undercutting local news in service of a relentless thirst for profits.

Employees of the Chicago Tribune, its affiliated suburban newspapers, the Design and Production Studio that works on layouts for papers nationwide, and the now-shuttered Spanish language paper Hoy voted to unionize as part of the Chicago News Guild in 2018, with the Tribune Content Agency international syndication and newswire service voting to unionize in 2020.

But more than five years after organizing began – and more than two years after Alden Global Capital purchased Tribune Publishing in a deal much maligned by concerned reporters and readers alike – 179 members are still working without a contract.

The union says its membership in the…