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The already tenuous relationship between Condé Nast and the union that represents greater than 400 of its staffers at Vainness Honest, Vogue and GQ, amongst different publications, seems to be hanging by a thread.
On Wednesday afternoon, round 35 Condé Union members marched to executives’ workplaces to protest further layoffs that they are saying had been threatened throughout labor negotiations on Tuesday. Throughout Tuesday’s bargaining session over a primary contract, the corporate mentioned it meant so as to add 5 extra staffers to its preexisting listing of staff set to be reduce and warned that the corporate might add extra, in keeping with the Condé Union, which additionally represents staff at Condé Nast Leisure, Bon Appétit, Attract, Architectural Digest, Condé Nast Traveler, Epicurious, Teen Vogue, Glamour and Self. (Some New Yorker staffers cut price in a separate union.)
The Condé Union additional alleges that the corporate didn’t present any counterproposals on union asks from the earlier week — on distant work and paid day off, for example — throughout Tuesday’s assembly on Zoom, which administration apparently ended abruptly.
In the meantime, on Tuesday Condé Nast filed an unfair labor observe cost in opposition to the Condé Union’s umbrella labor group, the NewsGuild of New York, for “bad-faith, floor bargaining,” in keeping with an organization memo circulated to staffers who belong to the Condé Union. The corporate’s causes embody that in 4 months of bargaining “they [the union] have but to deal with our workforce discount proposal significantly,” making only one proposal associated to layoffs in December that known as for no less than seven months’ severance and COBRA for affected staffers and requesting simply 28 cuts, as an alternative of the initially proposed 94.
“We’ve got additionally knowledgeable the union that we’ll begin proposing price saving measures to offset the price of continued wage carrying prices that aren’t in our 2024 finances,” the memo acknowledged. “Regardless of our greatest efforts to keep away from this, the union’s delay is leaving us with no selection aside from to search out these price financial savings. At this time we informed the union that we’ll be including further roles to the proposed discount listing.”
In an announcement, NewsGuild of New York president Susan DeCarava known as the cost “a blatant try and pressure us into accepting their [management’s] layoff plans.” She added, “As we now have all through negotiations, we’re able to cut price when administration desires to cease the theatrics and cut price in good religion.”
The brand new layoffs had been proposed practically two weeks after Axios reported that Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch mentioned the corporate “doesn’t have plans for any additional reductions,” which has irked the union and its members. Lynch first introduced that the corporate was intending to put off 5 % of its workforce on Nov. 1, and the Condé Union has been bargaining these cuts ever since. Earlier than Tuesday, the corporate informed the union that it was eyeballing 94 union members, or 20 % of the Condé Union. “What occurred Tuesday was a gross show of administration taking part in video games with individuals’s livelihoods,” Vainness Honest social media supervisor Mark Alan Burger mentioned in an announcement. “It’s merely unacceptable and we’re displaying that in the present day.”
In response to Vainness Honest employees author and store steward Erin Vanderhoof, who attended Wednesday’s protest, neither Lynch nor chief content material officer and world editorial director Anna Wintour had been current within the workplaces in the course of the demonstration. Administration gathered in a room as staffers demonstrated. “I can’t inform you the place these 5 jobs are coming from or even when it’s simply 5 as a result of that was unclear, however I can inform you that a number of the individuals already on the listing are very elementary to serving to Condé Nast climate out the storm of the entire digital media decade,” she mentioned.
These staffers who’re on the layoffs listing have been informed that they’re getting reassigned to a gaggle separate from their earlier manufacturers that’s being known as the “Central Content material Unit,” in keeping with an individual acquainted. Whereas the precise work the CCU can be doing is as but unknown — staffers are presupposed to obtain their assignments on Monday, March 25 — the group can be reporting to Chris DiPresso, vp of content material finance and operations.
The Condé Union and administration have bargaining a primary union contract since September 2022. These two events’ relationship has been contentious ever for the reason that Nov. 1 layoffs announcement, with the NewsGuild of New York (Condé Union’s guardian union) submitting an preliminary unfair labor observe costs in opposition to the corporate in January and staffers staging a walkout on Jan. 23, the day that nominations for the 96th Academy Awards had been introduced — a significant information day for titles like Vainness Honest. The NLRB has not but dominated on the NewsGuild’s unfair labor observe cost.
The events are scheduled to return to negotiations on Thursday.
Extra reporting by Lachlan Cartwright.