• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, October 15, 2024

Condé Nast has predictably agreed to a tentative three-year contract with the New Yorker Union just 11 days ahead of the magazine’s New Yorker Festival. 

The deal ends a strike that could have disrupted the star-studded event. It must still be ratified by union members. 

Those members unanimously voted to strike early this month. 

According to the union, the employees scored some significant wins, including:

- an increase in the salary floor to $63,000 upon contract notification, and $2,000 in bonuses for employees making below $65,000; the salary floor increases to $64,500 on April 1, 2026

- a 6% general wage increases over the next six months, and 12% over the life of the contract

- protection of the ability to take on external work free from unnecessary corporate surveillance

- an extension in notification timelines for layoffs, and a change in language that allowed the firm to execute layoffs by job title as opposed to department

Scheduling walkouts prior to company events clearly is a tactic that works. In May, Condé Nast avoided a threatened disruption of Vogue’s Met Gala when it reached a last-minute contract agreement with the NewsGuild of New York.

At that time, the union claimed it won $3.6 million in total wage increases, a layoff moratorium through July 31, 2024, a two-week increase to paid parental leave to 14 weeks and several other concessions. 

The New Yorker unit has over 100 editorial employees. It unionized in 2018, and began contract negotiations in March 2024.

“We refused to give in to the company’s attempts to erode the progress we’ve made since unionizing in 2018, and we won a contract that continues to raise standards for workers at The New Yorker, at Condé Nast, and throughout the media industry,” says  Hannah Aizenman, unit chair of the New Yorker Union.