Airbnb teams with WeWork

Two of the world’s most valuable technology startups are teaming up in the hope of luring young business travelers away from hotels.

Airbnb of San Francisco plans to begin a pilot program Thursday with WeWork to provide travelers with amenities commonly found in hotel business centers, such as a work desk, Wi-Fi, printers and meeting rooms, said people familiar with the project.

The companies will reportedly start with six cities: Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Washington, London and Sydney.

When renting a room on Airbnb’s site, customers will be able to save a spot at a WeWork office nearest to where they’re staying. Airbnb and WeWork confirmed the partnership but declined to provide specifics.

WeWork, valued at about $20 billion, is the world’s largest provider of shared work spaces. Airbnb, with a valuation of $31 billion, is the largest provider of home rentals. Business travel could be a lucrative opportunity for both companies. Airbnb allows renters to search for homes with a desk and high-speed Internet, and said it expects corporate travel on its site to quadruple this year.

Union push at L.A. Times

Newsroom employees at the Los Angeles Times are trying to form a union, setting up a potential clash with the newspaper’s parent company, Tronc.

After months of organizing, the committee behind the push for a union drafted a letter laying out its reasoning. The unsigned letter calls for improved working conditions, higher pay, more generous benefits and protections for staff members against “unilateral change by Tronc.”

The letter says “a majority of the newsroom” had signed union cards supporting representation by the NewsGuild, which represents 25,000 reporters, editors, photojournalists and other media workers across the United States.

Several people involved in the organizing push, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared losing their jobs if they were to speak publicly, said roughly 200 people had signed the cards.

Chronicle News Services