Dow Jones, union agree to new minimum pay for reporters

Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch.com and Barron’s, and the union that represents business journalists have agreed to a new base pay for starting reporters as part of new contract negotiations.

Upon conclusion of the contract negotiations, the new minimum salary for full-time reporters will be $72,800, a $9,500 increase over the current minimum.

The escalating scale minimum for reporters with five years of service will also increase to $95,585 from $79,352.

The IAPE 1096 union notes that introductory pay scales typically do not impact large numbers of employees. Almost 85% of the current roster of union-represented reporters at Dow Jones publications are already paid in excess of the new $95,000 top minimum rate.

Negotiations will resume on Tuesday. Read more about the negotiations here.

A one-year contract expired on June 30. That agreement, covering the period from July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2023, provided a salary increase of 4 percent for all IAPE-represented employees retroactive to July 1, with a minimum raise of $40 per week, as well as a lump-sum payment equal to 1% of pay as of June 30, 2022, with a minimum of $1,000.