Gerard Lim: Solidarity from a Guild journalist

For anyone harboring reservations about joining the guild, please rest easy. The Media Guild of the West is, by leaps and bounds, the most proactive and effective newsroom guild with which I have been associated. More importantly, the leadership in place is the perfect mediator between you and management, willing and eager to fight for our rights, no matter how basic. After having worked in seven newsrooms — including open and union shops, from small, family-owned weeklies to major metropolitans — the Los Angeles Times Guild is quite simply the most forthright, effective and united organization in our industry. Having worked at the Orange County Register for nine years, I am well aware of the tumult and chaos that diminished it over the past couple decades. Consider the guild the first step to returning it to greatness.

Gerard Lim is a multiplatform editor for the L.A. Times and a member of the L.A. Times Guild.