Editorial Staff of New York Magazine Unionizes with The NewsGuild of New York

Editorial employees of New York Media announced today that they have unionized with the NewsGuild of New York, CWA Local 31003. This morning staff presented management with a request for voluntary recognition of their union, after nearly 80% of eligible staffers signed on to be represented by the NewsGuild of New York. The NewsGuild-CWA is the largest union for media professionals in the country, representing 24,000 members across the country.

The union at New York would cover approximately 160 full- and part-time editorial staffers, which includes the print and web staff of New York Media and all of the verticals — Vulture, the Cut, Intelligencer, Grub Street, and the Strategist. It would include such job titles as writers, editors, fact checkers, copy editors, photo editors, designers, web producers, and video producers.

In a mission statement distributed throughout the newsroom Wednesday morning, and presented to Editor-in-Chief Adam Moss, employees stated that: “We believe that unionizing is the best way to address our grievances in the workplace and allow us to continue publishing stories as honest, gritty, and exceptional as this city. We hope that New York Media will recognize our union so that we can begin an amicable collective-bargaining process and build a stronger, more equitable company for another 50 years.”

With increasing corporate pressures across the industry and at the magazine, as well as stagnant wages and benefits, employees stressed the need to secure a collective voice: “The precarity of our industry is well known, and job security is always an issue. We all feel enormous pride and investment in our positions here. But of course, pride and prestige do not on their own bring stability. We need that too.”

This announcement is the latest in a number of successful NewsGuild organizing drives in newsrooms across the country — including The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The New Republic, and Ziff Davis (Mashable, PC Magazine, Geek.com, and AskMen) — that are demanding a collective voice in their workplace.

“We look forward to forging an amicable and productive relationship with the leadership team of New York Media, said Grant Glickson, President of The NewsGuild of New York. “We couldn’t be prouder of the editorial staff for taking this important step.”

More information can be found at nymagunion.org.

The full mission statement of the New York Mag Union is below:

New York Magazine is a New York City institution and an essential voice in American journalism. We, the editorial staff, are proud to work at such a prestigious publication, and we want to ensure that New York Media continues to excel while valuing the contributions of all of its employees for years to come.

The New York brand is built upon the hard work of editors, writers, fact checkers, copy editors, photo editors, designers, producers, and social-media editors. Whether about culture, politics, fashion, or food, our reporting is consistently smart and engaging and is not afraid to question power. As the company grows, we believe our workplace should embody those values.

Currently, editorial staff members are often forced to choose between continuing the work they love at New York and finding a more tenable job elsewhere. For years, some employees have been paid well below media standards. Benefits constantly change and don’t meet our actual needs. Salaries vary significantly between people who hold the same position, and career development is either nonexistent or inadequate. Across the board, employees know the best chance to earn a raise or promotion is to get a job offer elsewhere. All of this only exacerbates an already troubling lack of diversity in our newsroom.

The precarity of our industry is well known, and job security is always an issue. We all feel enormous pride and investment in our positions here. But of course, pride and prestige do not on their own bring stability. We need that too.

To safeguard our rights as workers and sustain the magazine’s voice into the future, we have decided to form a union with the NewsGuild, which represents our peers at outlets that are producing some of today’s most important and vital journalism, such as 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.

We believe that unionizing is the best way to address our grievances in the workplace and allow us to continue publishing stories as honest, gritty, and exceptional as this city. We hope that New York Media will recognize our union so that we can begin an amicable collective-bargaining process and build a stronger, more equitable company for another 50 years.

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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.