Press

NEW YORK –  After Tuesday’s contentious bargaining session in which Condé Nast management added five more people to their layoff list – and threatened to add even more  – Condé Union members have had enough and are protesting this afternoon inside the magazine giant’s headquarters at One World Trade Center.

NEW YORK – Times management violated the New York Times Guild’s contract when it harassed members and discriminated against them during its investigation into an alleged leak of newsroom information about “The Daily” to the Intercept.

In an email distributed to its membership on Friday, The Times Guild strongly condemned management’s targeted interrogation of members of the Middle Eastern North African (MENA) Employee Resource Group. Susan DeCarava, the president of The NewsGuild of New York, also sent an email on Friday to Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger.

On Saturday, Times management sent a response in an email to all newsroom employees in which management asserted, among other things: “The inquiry is focused narrowly on how internal materials were shared with outsiders.”

This is not true. 

On Tuesday, The Times Guild filed a grievance on behalf of the union, citing management’s intimidation of certain employees during hostile, aggressive interviews that transgressed far outside the scope of any investigation into potential leaks. Members faced extensive questions about their involvement in MENA ERG events and discussions, and about their views of the Times’s Middle East coverage. Group leaders were asked to turn over the group’s membership list, as well as the names of all New York Times colleagues who had “raised concerns” — in private discussions — about a published New York Times article.

Multiple members were also asked to hand over their personal communications, on their personal devices and digital accounts, with other employees about shared workplace concerns — conversations that had nothing to do with the internal materials specific to “The Daily” that are the stated focus of this inquiry. 

“We cannot allow the company to target our members, and this grievance is a first step toward protecting them,” said Bill Baker, Times Guild unit chair. “This investigation has been incredibly damaging, creating an environment where no one feels safe to raise internal concerns, even through the designated channels for doing so. For us as a union, we can’t let that stand.” 

The NewsGuild of New York, representing nearly 4,000 media professionals and journalists, stands with our colleagues at The NewsGuild-CWA, and at news organizations and journalism advocacy groups across the world in opposition to the proposal by the United States’ Department of Homeland Security to limit the duration of “I Visas” to 240 days.

The NewsGuild of New York is incredibly appreciative of the support that our New Yorker Union members have received this week from Senator Elizabeth Warren, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and former Attorney General Eric Holder—all of whom have decided that, in solidarity with the union’s fight for just cause, they will not be participating in scheduled New Yorker Festival events until New Yorker management agrees to grant this fundamental labor protection to their employees. Our thanks, too, to the countless New Yorker subscribers and fellow union members who have stepped up to show their support.

The racial, economic, and gender diversity of each of our workplaces has long been a priority for our members. It was, and remains, one of the most important reasons we organized in the first place: to have a voice in the growth and evolution of our work, we need true equity and inclusion. And negotiating over NewsGuild Diversity and Hiring proposals at Conde Nast has been a long process, beginning in early 2019, when the New Yorker Union first presented its Diversity and Inclusion proposal to David Remnick's bargaining team and Conde Nast representatives. 

Vox Media announced today it will be laying off members of the New York Magazine Union, despite cost-saving alternatives that would have saved jobs across the company. This includes a number of members who had already been furloughed or were working reduced hours for the last three months.

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.

From The Daily Beast:  Staffers at the popular business publication Fortune planned to strike outside the magazine’s first in-person conference in years, ultimately forcing its postponement.