'Union Busting Is Disgusting': Labor Movement Hopes Shutdown of News Sites Is a Pivotal Moment

Days after losing their jobs, former reporters for DNA Info and Gothamist awkwardly stood among the elected officials they'd previously jousted with.

Their goal: to shame Joe Ricketts, the billionaire who owned DNA Info and Gothamist, until he suddenly shut it down.

Ricketts issued a public statement after closing the sites, declaring that "businesses need to be economically successful if they are to endure." But his timing drew criticism. As Public Advocate Letitia James noted, he pulled the plug one week after employees voted to unionize.

"By firing them this is nothing but a blatant act of union busting," shouted James. "And union busting is disgusting."

The office of Eric Schneiderman, the state's attorney general, said it is still gathering facts on the matter.

Lowell Peterson, the executive director of the Writers Guild of America, East, said his union is too, and that if management did shut the sites down because it didn't want to negotiate with a union, that would be unlawful, and in violation of the National Labor Relations Act.

Regardless of how this episode plays out legally, another member of the Writers Guild, journalist Brendan O'Connor, said he hopes it will raise a question in the minds of all journalists.

"Whose side are you on?" O'Connor asked the crowd. "Do you stand with the workers, or do you stand with the capitalists who want to crush us? That is the operating question."