Employees at Bloomberg LP are attempting to unionize

Fearful of layoffs and unhappy with work conditions, employees at a unit of Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor's private data-and-media giant, have launched a campaign to unionize.

The drive, to join Local 32035 of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, involves about a hundred salaried data analysts at Bloomberg's large campus in Skillman (NJ). They work for the company's struggling Bloomberg Law division. If successful, it would be the first time any group of Bloomberg employees has voted to join a union. Success in organizing the Bloomberg employees would represent a boost for newspaper guilds. Unions in the industry have lost leverage as change has ripped through the news business over the past decade. (Employees at Fortune's publisher, Time, are represented by a guild.)