Tensions rise for Daily News owner as 11 dailies join NewsGuild

Heath Freeman, president of the New York Daily News-owning hedge fund Alden Global Capital, may soon be sporting a moniker he is likely to detest: top union organizer in the country.

On Friday, the National Labor Relations Board revealed that the Orange County Register, the LA Daily News and nine other Southern California daily papers that belong to Southern California News Group, a unit of Alden-controlled Media News Group, voted to form a union that will be affiliated with the NewsGuild. The effort marks one of the largest unionization drives at a newspaper chain in years.