Baltimore Sun owner David Smith’s -separate- company, Sinclair, released new financials this month showing that they’re close to making over $1 million off of their ties to The Sun in just 2025.

And yet, The Sun refuses to even negotiate wages with its union employees.

The latest move by @baltimoresun.bsky.social in its crusade to silence its union employees: a directive that bans any desk signage with messaging about collective bargaining, calling them “divisive.”

We’ve shown solidarity this way for decades. This is textbook union busting.

#TBT Remember when Sun co-owner Armstrong Williams responded to our concerns with a column about how a “free marketplace of ideas is indispensable?”

His and David Smith’s management tried to make us sign a gag rule, then walked away from contract negotiations because we wouldn’t muzzle ourselves.

David Smith’s first order of business after purchasing The Baltimore Sun was to disparage the newspaper’s dedicated staff at an all-hands meeting.

Since then, his company has sought to silence any criticism from the union.

We get it, David: You can dish it, but you certainly can’t take it.

We recently invited Baltimore Sun owner/Sinclair chair David Smith to the bargaining table — he suggested that he could get a deal done in “five minutes.”

That meeting never came. Instead, his lawyer declared impasse, and told us they’d implement a contract that silences union members.

We’re still around, and we’re still fighting. We’ve been busy trying to negotiate a deal that defends top-notch journalism, quality jobs and a strong union base at Baltimore’s newspaper of record.

Our union journalists work tirelessly to hold the powerful accountable, and that includes in our own workplace. The Baltimore Sun’s ownership wants us silent.

Send a message to David Smith and Armstrong Williams: Charm City won’t stand for millionaire union busters.

But we’ll end with Mark Twain. His alleged quote: “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you are mis-informed.” The Center for Mark Twain Studies says this is one of the quotes most commonly misattributed to Twain.

Then there are some questionable quotes from Cicero. Maybe they were lost in translation, or from him speaking from the grave: his birth and death dates are given as 106 BC to 43 AD — meaning he lived nearly 150 years.

Neither turn up in an online search of Franklin’s papers at Yale and the National Archives’ collection of founding fathers quotes Likewise, several quotes by fellow founding father James Madison are mistakenly attributed to Thomas Jefferson.

Take these Benjamin Franklin quotes: “It is the responsibility of every citizen to question authority.” And, “The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance.”

When the Baltimore Sun opened its new office last year, ownership saw fit to decorate it with “motivational quotes”. Motivational to someone looking to undermine journalism and our union, that is.

The Sun Guild has fought back hard. We:
• Launched a public info campaign
• Held 4 rallies
• Withheld our 137 bylines during election week
• Filed 2 unfair labor practice charges
• Began bargaining to protect our union and win our first raise in over a decade. (4/5)

One year ago today, Baltimore Sun employees learned their paper had been purchased by Sinclair executive chairman David Smith.

In just 12 months, Smith has made his agenda clear, with union-busting tactics and a disregard for journalistic integrity.

Here's a look back. (1/5)