Pitches wanted (worker organizing) | $1 per word

COMPANY/PUBLICATION: CAPITAL & MAIN

Tracie McMillan, Project Editor at Capital & Main, is looking for pitches:

Freelancers (including, alas, folks newly and unvoluntarily freelancing), I have a story budget, starting at $1/word, for news features about worker organizing. What are we looking to publish under our Striking Back series at Capital & Main? Let me tell you.

Stories about workers who are organizing around their identity as workers to make jobs (or policies that affect jobs) better. This can be folks in long-time, established unions; people in new, independent unions; or folks organizing without a union/through worker's centers.

This is not, I repeat, not, a series to cover contract fights for existing, established unions. Those are great stories, but they are not for me.

I'm committed to supporting folks to do great work. I really do edit the pieces, and ask for revisions. Our rates are sufficient, I think, to match that work.

As an editor, I prize curiosity, cultural competency, rigorous reporting, and commitment to accuracy. If this isn't you, working with me may be frustrating. If it is you, this might be fun. I am eager to work with reporters outside of LA/NYC who know the place they report well.

Because these are mostly news features, I need stories that get at a bigger picture than just these people, right here, trying to organize. Are they doing something innovative, like three unions targeting the same boss at once? Have they had surprising success? Or, alternately...

Is their fight a response to bigger changes than just paychecks? Is their industry shifting from nonprofit to for-profit, putting downward pressure on wages? Is climate change making workplaces so hot that workers start organizing? Do they work for a union-busting contractor whose CEO has gotten rich off government contracts, even as we have an arguably pro-union presidential administration? These stories, from our series, are just a start: https://capitalandmain.com/striking-back-series

Send pitches my way: tracie at capitalandmain.com. I'd love to hear your ideas.

CONTACT INFORMATION (please do not share the email address publicly):

• Questions/submissions: tracie@capitalandmain.com
• Website: https://capitalandmain.com

TO HELP YOU CRAFT YOUR PITCH:

• Learn more about the publication: Capital & Main is a nonprofit publication that reports from California on the most pressing economic, environmental and social issues of our time. Working with top writers, editors and visual artists, it covers income inequality, climate change, the green economy, housing, health care, public education, immigration, race, and criminal justice. More information here.
• Read through a selection of recent Striking Back articles/stories on its website.
• Review the submission guidelines here. Note that these are the publication's general guidelines to help you refine your pitch. You must still follow the editor's specific instructions above.
• Check out our collection of pitch excerpts on this page and find more sample pitches at The Open Notebook Database and at SuccessfulPitches.com.
• Do not forget to end your pitch with (1) a short introduction about yourself; (2) a few lines highlighting your writing experience, relevant credentials and publication credits; and (3) links to your strongest work or portfolio, and online profile.

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