Gawker media staff push for unionisation

April 16, 2015 10:41 PM

If the effort is successful, Gawker Media would be the first major online media company to unionise.
posted by modernnomad (28 comments total)

I think it's telling that HamNo, who is normally pretty solid on transparency is a little dodgy here: Gawker writing staff is trying to organize (by head count, probably less than 50% of the company). No indication that support staff or IT (mostly offshore) are getting any protections. I think it would be awesome if the editorial staff was helping an SEIU push at least for the stateside support staff, but I bet that's not in the works.

Also curious to know about the status of the thinly traded (last person I know to try and write about this was Felix, and he basically said there was no way to price them, so I'm not going to flat out claim they can't be traded) options. Hamilton likely has them, but I'm betting it's either the frustration of being unable to price their options or the simple removing that as a benefit that led to this.

edit: clarified 'thinly traded'
posted by 99_ at 10:56 PM on April 16, 2015 [2 favorites]

I wouldn't worry about slight class distinctions. I suspect this will be put down with the legal equivalent of a flamethrower.
posted by figurant at 11:36 PM on April 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

I hope that when it is, it reminds everyone how shit gawker really is and quiets down some of the "but they do good stuff sometimes!!1!"
posted by emptythought at 11:38 PM on April 16, 2015

Let's not forget Metafilter Local 47 - "Agitate, Educate, Orga... ooh, a cat riding a Segway"
posted by fallingbadgers at 12:33 AM on April 17, 2015 [12 favorites]

There is power in a union. Get on that, Gawker folk.
Young kids might realise unionising is a good thing.
posted by Mezentian at 12:57 AM on April 17, 2015 [15 favorites]

You won't believe why these writers are on strike!
posted by eriko at 2:29 AM on April 17, 2015 [11 favorites]

I think it's telling that HamNo, who is normally pretty solid on transparency...

I'm sorry for my ignorance. This writer is significant enough to merit an abbreviation? I'm not being snarky or anything. I've just never heard of Nolan. Is he something beyond being a random Gawker writer? A big shot there?

(I don't really go to Gawker unless I am linked to it. Nothing moral or anything. Just not on my list.)
posted by brundlefly at 2:33 AM on April 17, 2015 [3 favorites]

Rookie move.

Can you clarify what you mean by that?
posted by josher71 at 3:29 AM on April 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

I hope that when it is, it reminds everyone how shit gawker really is and quiets down some of the "but they do good stuff sometimes!!1!"

Funny, my reaction was "My god, if they're successful at unionizing, I wouldn't be able to hate Gawker quite so intensely! How awful." I'm not sure which of us that makes the optimist and which the pessimist.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 4:51 AM on April 17, 2015 [4 favorites]

> Rookie move.

Can you clarify what you mean by that?

"So why do we want to unionize? I cannot speak for everyone, but for me, these are the motivations!"
"..."
"When do we want it?"
"NOW!"
posted by um at 5:19 AM on April 17, 2015 [3 favorites]

Good luck to 'em!
posted by Drexen at 6:02 AM on April 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

Kind of interesting timing. Gawker's also in the middle of a class action suit for using unpaid interns for full staff responsibilities. Probably a coincidence, but it is curious that this is happening while the body corporate is being brought to task for misuse of unpaid labor.
posted by themadthinker at 6:53 AM on April 17, 2015

Go Gawker writers! I mean, how fair is it for people to write thousands upon thousands of words, paying others' salaries in the process via ad revenue, and not being compensated fairl...oh shit.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 7:06 AM on April 17, 2015

(I keed...)
posted by Joseph Gurl at 7:07 AM on April 17, 2015

I hope that when it is, it reminds everyone how shit gawker really is and quiets down some of the "but they do good stuff sometimes!!1!"

It's just cheap filler anyone could write. Web sites are the modern day sweatshops and the writers are the expendable grunt workers. You may have the degree and even the talent, but you are to write disposable dreck to an audience who just wants a diversion right then and there until the next click.

I am of two minds. Corporations have lobby groups and that is their version of a union, but unions have not kept up with the strategy of the times, and if you have a lousy union rep, it's useless.

Unions are not a salvation and it's time for a more effective and aggressive form of worker protection. I wish them well, but it is not going to solve their problems because the balance of power is already way out of whack.
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 7:10 AM on April 17, 2015 [2 favorites]

Follow up in the Wapo about why this is likely to be pretty successful, at least internally.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:37 AM on April 17, 2015 [2 favorites]

I'm sorry for my ignorance. This writer is significant enough to merit an abbreviation?

That's how he's referred to on the site -- don't know if that passes muster for 'significant.' He's the longest tenured writer on Gawker proper; probably pretty high up in the seniority overall.
posted by 99_ at 8:34 AM on April 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

Web sites are the modern day sweatshops and the writers are the expendable grunt workers.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 8:49 AM on April 17, 2015 [2 favorites]

No indication that support staff or IT (mostly offshore) are getting any protections. I think it would be awesome if the editorial staff was helping an SEIU push at least for the stateside support staff, but I bet that's not in the works.

I can't speak for Gawker staff, of course, but I work for an NGO where the researchers and writers (etc.) are unionized, as are the administrative staff (different unions). We pushed our employer to contract in the cleaning staff (they are already in SEIU) and now that they are in, we are pushing to have them be at the common bargaining table with the two other unions, which we hope will increase their wages and get them into our pension plan.

We've been unionized a long time and getting the workers contracted in was a long, long process (that began before I started here 8 years ago) and it required our stakeholders/constituents to demand it of the board of directors. But the fact is, having part of the workforce unionized and not all isn't ideal, because workers can still be played off each other to undercut wages, etc. in that scenario. Once the unionization ball gets rolling, it gets easier to get everyone in.

And of course, the more cynical side of me says that unions are always looking to increase their dues-paying members, and organizing the second half of a workplace is easier than going out and finding a new one to organize.
posted by looli at 8:54 AM on April 17, 2015 [2 favorites]

I didn't pursue a career in journalism because I could see I'd never make a decent living doing it this century. I really, really hope this works.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:07 AM on April 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

Look for the union <label/>

International Union of Spam, Clickbait, and Listicle Workers?
posted by blue_beetle at 11:10 AM on April 17, 2015

Look for the union

It's hard to believe that this commercial was so common that the song was as well-known as any jingle for fast food or hot dogs. I guess I was too young to know at the time, but was it even the slightest bit as "controversial" as it would be today?
posted by Room 641-A at 11:52 AM on April 17, 2015

Personally, I'm waiting for Buzzfeed Local 101 and the HuffPo Workers Union:

"23 Ways to Know its Time to Unionize."

"She Didn't Believe in Unions Until THIS Happened!"
posted by 4ster at 12:21 PM on April 17, 2015

Unions are not a salvation and it's time for a more effective and aggressive form of worker protection. I wish them well, but it is not going to solve their problems because the balance of power is already way out of whack.

....such as? I mean, it's not like governmental protections are going to happen without some aggressive shifts in public opinion and power shifts. How do you propose this new, more effective form of worker protection get rolling? Honest question.
posted by sciatrix at 12:27 PM on April 17, 2015 [5 favorites]

Yeah, a union at its core is just the workers saying "we need a united front to interact with the single front of the business." that need never goes away.

My pet peeve is how the professional classes (tech & lawyers, for my personal knowledge) went the route of thinking they didn't need unions due to their expertise and guilding. And then their labour got devalued and exploited. Whoever could have guessed.
posted by Lemurrhea at 2:12 PM on April 17, 2015 [4 favorites]

Or in an area where there are two company's in the same industry/job and one has union, the employees at the other one will all be like, why have a union, we have the same benefits and privileges they do, ect.
They don't stop to think why they have the same benefits.
posted by Iax at 10:32 PM on April 17, 2015

Unions are very costy, and they can very realistically end up with a bankruptcy. You can't have a job, unionized or not, if the company no longer exists....
posted by Grease at 11:28 AM on April 19, 2015

Unions are very costy, and they can very realistically end up with a bankruptcy. You can't have a job, unionized or not, if the company no longer exists....

Oh, the Wall Street banks were unionized? The hundreds, nay, thousands of other tech startups were unionized? The fifty-plus percent of all small businesses that fail in their first three years -- those are just the unionized ones?
posted by Etrigan at 1:23 PM on April 19, 2015 [2 favorites]