The 34 Media Teams That Unionised in 2021
From Google to Gimlet - here are the results of a year of organising by US media and tech workers.
Over the last half-decade, workers across US media and tech have been busy organising. Researchers at the Cultural Workers Organize project counted more than 80 newsrooms that formed unions between the years 2015 and 2020; given the political and economic upheavals of the last 12 months, it’s hardly surprising the trend continued.
Journalism and the wider cultural industries, as in many fields crucial to a healthy society, has ceased to be one in which anyone but the star ‘influencer’ can make a decent living, and is notoriously rife with class, race, and gender disparities and stories of abuse. And yet, the industries as a whole - and many of their executives - continue to accumulate millions (sometimes billions) of dollars.
In response, many organised workers have been demanding not only raised pay floors and guaranteed increases as they progress, but also inclusion and diversity policies, protection for journalists from online harassment, and prohibition of the use of NDAs, among other provisions.
When the pandemic hit, and the media economy became a tornado of “we’re desperately needed by the public” vs “no one is paying for news”, Journalism’s Crisis became, well, crisis-er.
Surely, now, everyone would be unionising.
As one of my Chompsky projects this year, I kept a live list of all the media teams (and media adjacent: apps/streaming sites/tech teams at newsrooms) organising to improve working conditions - for themselves and others. Where around 80 were formed over the previous 5 years, in 2021 alone I counted 34.
The first half of the year saw a concentration of announcements, with 9 in February. Later in the year things slowed down: I saw no announcements or votes between late Aug and mid-Dec. (So if you see any I’m missing, please let me know!)
In addition, many of those already organised teams came away with excellent, paradigm-changing contracts in 2021:
NB: Some of these dates are announcements of intent to unionise, some are announcements of vote counts, and some are announcements of voluntary recognition by management.
The List
Alphabet (parent company of Google) — Jan 4, 2021
Loveland Reporter-Herald—Jan 27, 2021
New York Daily News — Feb 5, 2021
Daily Kos — Feb 8, 2021
The Record Guild (3 NJ Gannett-owned newsrooms) — Feb 10, 2021
Medium — Feb 11, 2021
Desert Sun — Feb 17, 2021
HuffPost Canada — Feb 23, 2021 (*Update*: HuffPost Canada was shutdown Mar 9, in massive layoffs made after its recent acquisition by BuzzFeed.)
Southern California News Group (includes numerous titles) — Feb 24, 2021
Austin American-Statesman — Feb 24, 2021
Washington State Newsguild (4 McClatchy papers in WA)—Feb 25, 2021
Glitch—Mar 2nd, 2021
Mobilize — Mar 15, 2021
The Daily News—Mar 18, 2021
FT Specialist—Mar 19, 2021
Meredith Corp—Mar 25, 2021
The State News Guild—Mar 31st, 2021
Gimlet Media and The Ringer (the first Spotify podcast unions)—Apr 7th, 2021
NYT Tech Guild—Apr 13th, 2021
Insider—Apr 19th, 2021
NPR’s Digital Media Division (NPR voluntarily recognised the union within 48 hours)—Apr 26th, 2021
The Appeal—May 10th, 2021
Kansas City Star—May 10th, 2021
Jigsaw Freelancers Union (non-fiction production company)—May 12th, 2021
MinnPost Union—May 13th, 2021
Longview Newsguild—May 14th, 2021
Forbes—May 18th, 2021
Fast Company and Inc.—May 26th, 2021 (video/podcasting/events/social staff of Fast Company join its union, as do staff at sister publication Inc.)
Atlantic DOT Guild (digital producers from east-coast Gannett outlets)—Jun 1st, 2021
The Atlantic—Jun 7th, 2021
MSNBC—Jun 17th, 2021
Hudson Valley News Guild—Jul 14th, 2021
APP-MCJ Guild (3 more east-coast Gannett outlets)—Aug 19th, 2021
IHeartMedia—Dec 9th, 2021
That’s the round-up. Can 2022 produce 35+ unions?
Many thanks to the following people/organisations for being my main sources:
All unions who announced themselves on Twitter! Good luck this year!
Don McIntosh of nwLaborPress
The researchers at the Cultural Workers Organize project
If I’ve missed anything/anyone, feel free to let me know. Happy new year, everyone.
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