BuzzFeed News Staff Walkout, Demands Management Recognize Union

BuzzFeed News saw its editorial staffers at all four of its U.S. bureaus walk-off their jobs Monday to demand recognition of their employee union.

For the past four months, BuzzFeed News staff have sought to get management, led by Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith, to recognize their union named the Buzzfeed News Union. Employees redoubled their efforts after layoffs in January underscored the instability at BuzzFeed and other similar digital news organizations.

Buzzfeed News Union tweeted management has "refused to work toward compromises on key issues" and "taken positions that would severely undercut our union's ability to protect workers." It said BuzzFeed had "offered us an unacceptable take-it-or-leave-it deal and walked away from the negotiating table."

In February, employees said they’d formed a union with the NewsGuild of New York, CWA Local 31003 and requested voluntary recognition. Over 90 percent of eligible editorial employees signed on to the union effort and delivered their request to Smith.

After four months of what they saw as fruitless negotiations with company management, employees demand management return to the table and resume negotiations towards a Voluntary Recognition Agreement.

Employees claim BuzzFeed management refused to recognize the bargaining unit employees proposed, and insisted on a far narrower scope of eligibility for the union. They said management has sought to exclude journalists they claim are managerial, supervisory, or confidential despite these people neither managing employees nor being privy to confidential information.

“Our members have grown tired of management stalling, and demand they return to the table in good faith,” said Grant Glickson, President of the NewsGuild of New York. “The BuzzFeed newsroom has the full support of the entire NewsGuild membership, and we are with them every step of the way.”

“I wish BuzzFeed management could see this as an opportunity to show that they respect and value their employees, rather than reacting out of fear, and I hope they come back to the table so we can have a real conversation,” said News Deputy Culture Editor, Rachel Sanders.

For its part, management said it "made an offer two weeks ago to voluntarily recognize NewsGuild as the representative of a BuzzFeed News union."

In an email to employees, Jonah Peretti, founder and CEO, described the proposal as "the product of more than three months of discussions and negotiations with the NewsGuild.”

"Since we made our offer on June 4, news staff have refused to accept it, and instead are seeking to impose additional demands that threaten our progress around voluntary recognition," wrote Peretti.

Peretti said both sides remain deadlocked.

NewsGuild-CWA is the largest union for media professionals in the USA. It represents 24,000 members across the land, including employees at The New York Times, The New Yorker, Thomson Reuters, The Nation, The L.A. Times, The New Republic and The Daily Beast.