• by Tony Silber , Staff Writer, April 1, 2022

Unionization ferment is continuing at a fast pace in the media sector, diverging from the trend in the rest of the U.S. economy over recent decades, where unions have dwindled and membership declined.

That’s good news for sure, but the question remains whether the impact is reaching those who need organized bargaining power the most.

There were two major events this week alone.

On Tuesday, more than 500 content-related workers at Condé Nast announced  they’re forming the Condé Nast Union and joining four CN brands that are already unionized: The New Yorker, Ars Technica, Pitchfork and Wired.

The announcement covers workers from a range of Condé Nast brands, including Allure, Architectural Digest, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Glamour, GQ, Bon Appétit, Epicurious, Condé Nast Entertainment, Teen Vogue, and Self. The union would become part of the News Guild of New York.

Also on Tuesday, the BuzzFeed news division’s union overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike, just days after the top editorial staff resigned ahead of a wave of new cuts at the award-winning but money-losing unit.

Newly public BuzzFeed, its stock languishing around $5, is under financial pressure from shareholders, and the news division is said to be losing $10 million per year. As a result, in connection with its most recent earnings announcement, CEO Jonah Peretti told the staff in a memo that the news division is being reduced through voluntary buyouts.

At the same time, Editor in Chief Mark Schoofs, who took over the job in 2020, said he would be stepping down and that Tom Namako, the deputy editor in chief, and Ariel Kaminer, the executive editor of investigations, would also be departing.

“Today, our unit came together and voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike,” read a Twitter post by the BuzzFeed News Union. “90% of the unit participated in the strike vote, with 91% voting to authorize the bargaining team to call a strike.”

Earlier this month, the Times Tech Guild, which represents 600 New York Times tech workers, won an election for a union in a landslide vote, with about 80% of the votes cast in favor of the union. 

This movement isn’t new. Workers at news publications have launched more than 200 union drives in the last decade, with over 90% of them successful, Poynter reported last summer.

The trend dates to at least 2015, Poynter said, when workers launched 20 union drives. In 2020, at least 37 union drives were attempted, all were successful. And as of mid-year 2021, Poynter said, drawing on data from the National Labor Relations Board, at least 29 union drives were attempted in the first half.

 It’s all good news, of course. But as a career journalist, I wonder whether the trend is reaching to the corners of the profession that most need support. Consider:

• For most freelance writers, $1 per word has always been the standard for compensation. It’s bad enough that that standard hasn’t changed since at least 1990, but now, it’s rarely even reached. Now, typically, a writer for a B2B publication might get $1,000 for a 1,500 or 2,000-word story. A contributor to a consumer-enthusiast publication likely gets less. A contributor to a local newspaper is lucky to get $300.

• Even contributors to some major media brands get terms like $500 total for a given number of stories per month.

• Freelance writers get no PTO. Neither do many contract workers, even if they have a steady gig with one brand. If they can’t work because of personal conflicts, they simply don’t get paid.

• Staff journalists at many magazines and newspapers are woefully underpaid. They toil for years or decades, often for less than $50,000.

• Reporters for local and regional newspapers often have multiple beats and cover huge geographic territories — both a recipe for failure.

• Pensions are a long-gone benefit. Health-insurance coverage has been whittled down to what seems its real current purpose: a way to limit the employer to the least-possible exposure.

I could continue with these challenges, but the reader gets the point. When we cheer unionization at the top of the food chain, it’s worth remembering whom unionization hasn’t affected.