MEDIA ADVISORY: Fortune Union takes action, goes on coordinated lunch-out in response to continued union-busting by the company

NEW YORK – The members of Fortune Union have had enough. 

The union, which represents digital employees of the storied magazine, is taking a coordinated lunch break Thursday, Sept. 21 in response to Fortune Media slow-walking contract talks and persistent unlawful actions. 

A supermajority of members will leave their desks at 1 p.m. EST and present management with a letter with a demand for the company to step up and agree to a fair contract immediately. They  will then leave the building and take a collective lunch break to strategize next steps in their fight for a fair contract. 

Fortune management has not responded to the union's last proposal, which members presented in May, on indemnification, a standard in the industry. The proposal, which memorializes a common practice in newsrooms across the country, provides journalists with legal and financial support and  protection against legal liability when reporting on behalf of Fortune.

Since Fortune Union’s certification in 2019, The NewsGuild of New York has filed seven unfair labor practice charges against Fortune Media, including one earlier this month challenging management's unlawful directive to return to in-person work. Returning to the office is a mandatory subject of bargaining, a position that’s been affirmed as recently as last month by the National Labor Relations Board.

“We simply will not tolerate the company trampling on our rights as unionized workers nor its slow-walking contract talks,” said Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez, unit chair of the Fortune Union. “We are taking this lunch-out today to show the company we are not backing down and ignoring us isn’t going to make us stop. We are what makes Fortune work and they need to respect our rights as union workers.”

Fortune Media needs to, once and for all, recognize the rights of its unionized employees and bargain in good faith with them.

“I’m proud of our members in Fortune Union for taking this next step and sending a clear message to management that they are done with the company’s bad faith bargaining and flagrant ignoring of unionized journalists’ rights,” said Susan DeCarava, president of The NewsGuild of New York. “The time has come for real talk at the table because these workers deserve better.”