The National Labor Relations Board recognized the Canton Unit in a decision issued on April 19, 1968. The local has represented employees in the newsroom, advertising, circulation and traffic departments, the business office and maintenance.

 

Repository employees spent several years organizing the Guild unit and filed for recognition in 1967. The final push coincided with the Brush-Moore chain, long-time owners of The Repository and other Ohio daily newspapers, being sold to Thomson, a newspaper chain based in Canada.

 

Bob Stewart, a newsroom reporter who eventually retired as sports editor, was the unit's first president. Guild members secured an initial contract, but in 1972 while working on a second contract, members called a strike that lasted 155 days. In 1976, the Guild's Canton unit joined members of Local 219 of the International Typographers Union in a 15-day strike.

 

The unit took a hit in 1988 when district managers in the circulation department were excluded from the unit following a unit clarification action by Thomson. But by 1994 the unit had organized and secured better wages for employees working in the mailroom.

 

Thomson sold The Repository to Copley Press in 2000, and a year later Copley purchased The Massillon Independent and Times-Reporter in Dover and New Philadelphia. The three daily newspapers were sold to GateHouse in 2007 and have remained with the company through a series of changes leading to the GateHouse merger with Gannett.

 

The Canton unit currently has about 80 members working in the newsroom, mailroom, advertising, circulation and maintenance departments. The Repository marked 200 years in business in 2015.