Members are fighting back against parent company Condé Nast’s efforts to simultaneously control the work they do outside the company, and suppress wages in the face of historic inflation.
NEW YORK – The New Yorker Union has unanimously voted to authorize a strike less than a month ahead of the magazine’s most star-studded and high-profile event.
The New Yorker Union represents about a hundred editorial workers at the legendary magazine, owned by publisher Condé Nast, and is a bargaining unit of The NewsGuild of New York. The strike-authorization vote concluded Wednesday: 100 out of 101 members voted; all 100 voted yes.
“We’ve been working without a contract for six months and a day. We’re fed up, and we won’t settle for a subpar contract. We’re ready to strike. It’s up to Condé Nast management what happens next,” said Douglas Watson, a copy editor for the New Yorker and a member of the union’s mobilizing team.
The vote comes less than a month before the 25th annual New Yorker Festival, which will run Oct. 25 to 27 and feature talks from some of the most notable people in American politics and culture.
The union, which represents story editors, fact checkers, photo editors, copy editors and other editorial staff, organized in 2018 and fought for two and a half years to secure a first contract.
In 2020, the union launched a public solidarity campaign, prompting two key attendees of that year’s festival, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY-14th, to pull out. Months later, after a credible strike threat, the union secured its first contract, which lifted salary floors, raised wages and provided strong job protections including just cause, an industry and labor standard that requires management to have a just and fair reason to discipline an employee.
Negotiations for a successor contract began in March. Throughout the bargaining process, Condé Nast management has tried to pull back many key benefits from the first contract, and resisted improvements that members see as critical.
Major issues include:
Outside work: Management, who seemingly wants total control over members’ time on and off the clock, is seeking new, overly broad — and highly invasive — restrictions on members’ ability to do work of any kind outside the company.
Pay: Management’s proposals on salary floors and general wage increases fail to acknowledge the true cost-of-living hikes in New York City as well as historic inflation.
Job security: After two rounds of layoffs in the last year and half, management has balked at provisions that would prevent the company from using “reductions in force” as a pretext to circumvent just cause.
The first contract’s terms expired on July 28. Immediately ahead of the expiration the union circulated a “whatever it takes” pledge, earning nearly unanimous support from unit members.
“Unless Condé Nast management agrees to enshrine in a contract the value of our members’ work, we will see them at the New Yorker Festival later this month,” said Susan DeCarava, president of The NewsGuild of New York. “We don’t need to purchase tickets. We’re inviting ourselves.”
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ABOUT THE NEWSGUILD OF NEW YORK
The NewsGuild of New York, Local 31003 of the Communications Workers of America, is a labor union representing nearly 6,000 media professionals and other employees at New York area news organizations, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Thomson Reuters, The Nation, TIME, PEOPLE, Wirecutter, and The Daily Beast. The NewsGuild of New York advocates for journalists to have a voice in the newsroom, for press freedom, for inclusive and diverse workplaces, and for just cause, no exceptions, for all media professionals.