Editorial Workers of Fortune Magazine Seek Recognition to Join Fellow Union-Protected Colleagues

03/28/2019

New York - Digital editorial employees at Fortune magazine are demanding voluntary recognition from Fortune management. By joining their fellow union-represented print colleagues as members of The NewsGuild of New York, these workers are seeking to erase the artificial digital divide that management at Fortune has insisted on enforcing.

Fortune has been a proud Guild-represented publication for decades. In December 2018, the magazine was sold for $150 million by Meredith Corporation to Fortune Media Group Holdings Limited, owned by Chatchaval Jiaravanon. During the sale, Jiaravanon stated that he looked forward to working with the Guild and honoring the union contract. It came as a surprise when Jiaravanon and his management team denied voluntary recognition to those staffers who should be covered by the agreement. 

NewsGuild of New York President Grant Glickson said, “Just like the rest of the Guild members at Fortune, these employees deserve the protection of a union contract. It’s time for Fortune management to break down the digital/print divide and recognize these workers as one union.”

Those seeking union representation by Jiaravanon and his management team have released the following statement:

Fortune magazine is an essential voice in American journalism. We, the staff who work predominantly on editorial digital content for Fortune, are proud to work here, and want to ensure that Fortune continues to excel while valuing the contributions of all its employees for years to come.

To safeguard our rights as workers and sustain the magazine’s reputation going forward, we have decided to join our NewsGuild colleagues, at Fortune and at other vital outlets like the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, and The Nation — and including newly unionized publications like the New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the New Republic.

Yet Fortune’s management has refused our request to be recognized as a collective body. This is surprising to us, since an overwhelming majority of Fortune’s online editorial staff signed cards in support of unionizing, in addition to support petitions signed by NewsGuild members of both Fortune and Time magazines.

Our peers at Fortune that write predominantly for the print magazine have been covered by the NewsGuild for decades. As management encourages its employees to break down the digital/print divide in our coverage, it is time for it to recognize equal protections for all workers.

As we enter a new era as a standalone company, we hope to unite as a collective union.

 

About the NewsGuild of New York
The NewsGuild, Local 31003 of the Communications Workers of America is a labor union representing nearly 3,000 media professionals and other employees at New York area news organizations, including The New York Times, Thomson Reuters, The Nation, The New Republic and The Daily Beast.

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