Three of the top four positions on the Washington-Baltimore News Guild’s executive board are being contested in an election that will conclude with a ballot count on Jan. 27.
The WBNG membership elects nine members to its Executive Council every two years. These “localwide” positions are the four officers (President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary) and the five At-Large Delegates.
The President, Vice President, and Secretary positions are being contested. The official ballots show incumbent President Sheila Lindsay (American Nurses Association) being challenged by Robert Struckman (AFL-CIO); incumbent Secretary Mark Gruenberg (at large) facing off with Mikhail Romanov (UFCW); and Elise Bryant (at large) pitted against Amy Lampkin (AFL-CIO) for the position of Vice President.
Gruenberg, Lampkin, and Lindsay were nominated at the local’s Nov. 5 General Membership meeting. Bryant, Romanov, and Struckman were nominated with the presentation of petitions to the Local 32035 WBNG Election & Referendum Committee chaired by Mark Pattison (Catholic News Service).
Ballots have been mailed to approximately three-quarters of the local’s 1,600 members. Meanwhile, sample ballots have been distributed to Washington-area Guild members at the AFL-CIO, ANA, American Postal Workers Union (APWU), Bloomberg-BNA, CNS, and United Food and Commercial Workers. Members of these units will vote at their offices Jan. 25 and Jan. 26.
The ballots will be counted beginning at 7 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 27, in the Washington Guild office.
The election is being conducted per the Washington-Baltimore News Guild’s bylaws, which were last amended in 2002. At the Nov. 5 membership meeting, nominations were also received for the five “localwide” At-Large Delegate positions on the executive board.
Gabe Gonzalez (AFL-CIO), Jazmin Gargoum (Working America), Matt Losak (At-Large unit), and Mark Pattison (CNS), were nominated to be delegates and accepted the positions. Because a fifth nominee declined the position after the petition period ended, there will be one vacancy among the localwide delegates.
Along with the three officers who win election and Treasurer Tim Fitzgerald (APWU) – who was nominated and unopposed – the four At-Large Delegates will be sworn in at the Jan. 31 General Membership meeting in the Guild’s Washington office.