Jul 19, 2019
BuzzFeed reaches deal to recognize union after months of talks
Bloomberg News
,BuzzFeed Inc. has agreed to voluntarily recognize its union, ending months of negotiations between management and employees, according to a person familiar with the matter.
BuzzFeed News employees walked off the job last month to push for union recognition, citing mismanagement, pay disparities and job cuts. Despite four months of negotiations, employees and management hadn’t agreed on which workers should be eligible to be part of the new bargaining unit -- a question that unions and companies frequently spar over.
BuzzFeed News staffers announced their union campaign in February, saying they would seek better benefits and fair pay after seeing some colleagues lose their jobs the prior month. The deal is part of a unionizing wave across the digital-media landscape.
“Everything we are demanding is already in line with BuzzFeed’s values,” the union’s organizing committee said in a statement earlier this year. “We want to remain spry and competitive, but we reject the argument that we must choose between freelancing in a hellscape gig economy for vampirical platforms or submitting to the whims of a corporation that botches basic HR tasks.”