Dow Jones (DJ)

The heat is really turning up in this situation. Reuters is reporting that the employee union has hired an advisor to explore alternative bids. More as it develops.

edit:

NEW YORK, June 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Independent Association ofPublishers' Employees (IAPE), the union that represents more than 2,000employees of Dow Jones & Company, has retained advisors to explorealternatives to the proposed News Corp. bid for Dow Jones & Company and itsflagship publication, The Wall Street Journal. IAPE believes that the best safeguard to the continued independence andunquestioned integrity of Dow Jones would be the continued stewardship of theBancroft Family, but if the Family is persuaded that a sale of Dow Jones isnecessary, IAPE believes that there are alternatives to Mr. Murdoch. We arehopeful that the Bancroft Family, with its long-standing commitment to theintegrity of Dow Jones, will consider these alternatives. Working with our advisors, Ownership Associates of Cambridge, Mass., andwith the resources of The Newspaper Guild and the Communications Workers ofAmerica, IAPE has begun reaching out to substantial investors that we believecould serve as partners in our effort to maintain the editorial independenceof Dow Jones & Company and preserve the unquestioned journalistic integrity ofall of its publications and products. The Newspaper Guild-CWA represents 35,000 workers in the United States,Canada and Puerto Rico, and CWA overall represents 700,000 workers in telecom,IT, journalism, broadcasting, manufacturing, airlines and other sectors.