The conflict between former Santa Barbara News-Press publisher Wendy McCaw and her union employees continues, despite the bankruptcy of the daily paper in 2023 and the decisions against her for “flagrant unfair labor practices including bad-faith bargaining” in 2012 and 2019. On June 4, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) determined that the “corporate veil shielding McCaw from personal liability … should be pierced.” The board ordered McCaw personally, and three of her limited liability companies (LLCs), to pay the former employees $3.6 million minus tax withholdings in a default judgment. Interest accrues until the judgement is paid.
McCaw was brought in personally for a number of egregious actions: As the sole owner of seven LLCs — in aviation, property, publishing, farming, and a holding company — she had mixed their funds and transferred a small amount to herself. The lack of an arm’s length relationship and use of $1.4 million in corporate assets for noncorporate purposes led to the insolvency of Ampersand Publishing, the NLRB board concluded, the entity that owned the News-Press on paper. Once notified of the pending default judgment in March 2025, McCaw never answered or appeared. The three LLCs implicated are Ampersand Publishing, 715 Anacapa, and 725 Kellogg. The last two hold the defunct newspaper’s building on De la Guerra Plaza and printing plant in Goleta.
The union had evolved out of what is known locally as the News-Press Mess: the meltdown of morale when editors and reporters came under fire from management. The wall was broken between business and reporting, staffers walked out and were fired, readers canceled subscriptions in sympathy with employees. The ensuing labor negotiations were so hostile that the NLRB panel wrote 17 separate paragraphs to describe the breadth of management’s unlawful conduct, which took place over 27 days from 2007 to 2009.
A decade has passed since the original judgment of $2.2 million against Ampersand Publishing — interest on the judgment alone has reached $1.4 million. Two employees illegally fired are owed $1.2 million in backpay, expenses, interest, and any excess tax for a lump-sum payment. Owed to about 48 former employees is a total of more than $2 million in merit pay losses or loss of work from the employment of nonunion personnel. The union is owed $200,000 in unpaid bills.
“I cannot believe it will be the 20th anniversary of the meltdown next month,” wrote Nora Wallace, who’d edited the paper’s Valley Living section. “My son couldn’t even walk or talk when it happened.” Wallace said she had long hoped to pay his college tuition with the $64,000 she was originally owed. “Now he’s in his final year of college, so I guess not.”
The majority of NLRB cases are settled or paid voluntarily to avoid continuing costs of litigation. This one is an exception. Following default, an enforcement application to the Ninth Circuit by the NLRB’s litigation branch would come next. Because McCaw didn’t argue the judgment, the order would be summarily enforced. If compliance still does not occur, a Contempt petition would be filed, according to the NLRB.
