Press

NEW YORK – Unionized journalists at Reuters emptied their respective newsrooms across the country for an hour on Monday to protest company executives’ blatant attempts to chill their participation in federally-protected collective action.

NEW YORK – Top-level editors at Reuters - including Editor-in-Chief Alessandra Galloni - have repeatedly big-footed unionized journalists by cherry-picking stories, taking bylines and doing reporting and writing instead of managing their staff, all in violation of labor law, the NewsGuild of New York says.

The NewsGuild of New York joins our parent union, The NewsGuild-CWA, in strongly condemning the targeting of media workers by police in Minnesota this past weekend.

On Thursday, we were notified via email that TNR planned to relocate the “majority” of its editorial staffers from New York City to Washington D.C. Simultaneously, a New York Times article announcing this shift appeared.

The members of the New Yorker Union, Pitchfork Union, and Ars Technica Union have overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike, with 98% support across our three bargaining u.nits. If and when our bargaining committees call for it, we will walk off the job to demand the contracts we deserve. 

Today, the New Yorker Union is undertaking a twenty-four-hour work stoppage. Between 6 A.M. on Thursday, January 21st, and 6 A.M. on Friday, January 22nd, union members will not participate in the production or the promotion of material for the print magazine or the Web site.

When Daily Beast management – led by our new corporate partners Ben Sherwood and Joanna Coles – informed us several weeks ago they were looking to slash staff in our newsroom, our bargaining team went right to work.

We successfully negotiated a robust buyout plan for our members, giving them the chance to decide for themselves if they wanted to leave the company. Twenty-five unit members, or roughly 70 percent of our unit, applied for the buyout. Our members now have a seven-day window to accept the buyout or rescind their application, which will mean the total number of members who choose to leave could change.

We have also won job security for unit members who choose to stay with the Company. Because we expect to exceed $1.5 million in payroll savings through the buyouts, unit members will be protected from any layoffs through Dec. 31, 2024.

We have also struck a tentative two-year collective bargaining agreement with the Company that benefits all of our members, whether they are choosing to take a buyout or staying. We have achieved retroactive pay increases from January 1 for all members. For members who are staying, the contract lifts wages for the lowest earners by at least 4% in 2024 (4.5% in 2025); mid-range earners by 2.5% in 2024 and 3% in 2025; higher-paid earners by 1% in 2024 and 1.5% in 2025; and top-paid workers by .5% in both years.

We have been in the driver's seat of this process since Sherwood and Coles arrived at the Beast. We have battled with Company lawyers, demanded information in the face of uncertainty, and have won the fight for our colleagues to design their own futures. The security and dignity we’ve afforded our colleagues affirms that our work is valuable and empowering. No matter how many members accept the buyout, our work as a Union will continue. Managers come and go, but we, the Daily Beast Union, are here to stay.

From the NYTimes:  More than 100 New York Times workers and their supporters protested outside The Times’s Manhattan headquarters on Tuesday, accusing the company of delaying contract talks.