Posts tagged Vox Media
Vox Media Union Pledges to Strike Without New Deal Addressing AI, Rising Costs
June 4, 2025 // Vox employees are threatening to strike unless they are given a new media contract that includes better pay and protections against artificial intelligence taking their jobs. The strike threat was made on Tuesday by the Writers Guild of America East, which said 95% of its bargaining members approved of the plan. Vox is the parent company of outlets like New York magazine, The Verge and Vulture.
Freelancers sue over new rules on independent contractors
July 8, 2024 // “It really coerces a lot of companies to try to put people, put workers in the employee box just so that they can be sure that they have their bases covered,” says Wen Fa, an attorney and vice president of legal affairs at the Beacon Center of Tennessee, a nonprofit think tank that advocates for individual rights and free market public policies. “Ultimately, what we’re fighting for is the right to freelance.” Fa is representing Margaret Littman and Jennifer Chesak — Nashville-based freelance writers and authors whose bylines collectively include The Washington Post, Men’s Health, National Geographic, and Condé Nast Traveler.
WGA East Backs The Dodo, Thrillist in Fight to Merge Unions With Vox Media Employees: ‘One Union, One Contract’ (EXCLUSIVE)
May 16, 2024 // The Writers Guild of America East council sent a letter to Vox Media brass Monday to demand the company allow employees at its publications The Dodo and Thrillist to merge into the Vox Media Union. The Dodo and Thrillist parent company Group Nine was purchased by Vox Media in December 2021. The Group Nine publications have been incorporated into Vox Media operations, but the employees say Vox Media leadership is refusing to allow them to join the Vox Media Union.
Vice to lay off hundreds and stop publishing on website
February 23, 2024 // Once high-flying media brands are shrinking as the digital ad market tightens further. BuzzFeed on Wednesday announced the sale of Complex for $108.6 million, a company it paid nearly triple for as part of its SPAC in 2021, albeit with some assets not involved. BuzzFeed also said it will lay off 16% of its workforce. Vox Media, which an executive once dubbed the "most acquisitive company" in digital media, spun off its political brand NowThis last year. It laid off 4% of its overall staff in November and 7% last January.
Bustle Staff Still Working Without a Contract 2 Years After Unionizing
October 25, 2022 // BDG, whose portfolio that includes Bustle, Mic, Inverse and Elite Daily, announced that it would voluntarily recognize BDG Union and enter bargaining talks in November 2020. Insiders with knowledge of the contract talks told TheWrap that negotiations immediately hit a snag because of the nature of BDG’s sites, whose editorial staff is filled with part-time and hourly writers. While the WGAE’s team of 30 committee members had been designed to reflect the part-time-heavy nature of these sites as well as the diversity of the new bargaining unit, BDG management initially said that negotiation meetings could not last longer than an hour if part-timers were involved, a provision that the union contested.
Op-ed: ‘Translation Agencies Are Cancelling My Contracts’ — California’s AB5 Bill Starts to Bite
June 20, 2022 // In response to criticism from freelancers concerned about losing work, Assemblywoman Gonzalez stated on December 12, 2019, “These were never good jobs. No one has ever suggested that, even freelancers.” She later clarified: “I’m sorry if I shorthanded things they were expressed to me. All the freelancers I met with complained about the lack of standards on pay, timely pay, etc.” On December 17, 2019, the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) and the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA), represented by pro bono attorneys from the Pacific Legal Fund, filed a lawsuit against what they call AB5’s illegal discrimination against journalists. The suit comes on the heels of Vox Media’s December 16, 2019 announcement that the company would end contracts with approximately 200 freelance sports writers and editors due to AB5, replacing them with 20 new part-time and full-time. gig worker bill, interpreters, legal challenge, translators, Lorena Gonzalez, court and medical interpreter, Gloria M. Rivera, National Committee for Languages, Coalition of Practicing Translators and Interpreters of California, American Association of Language Specialists, Rae K. Farley, CART, Communication Access Realtime Translation, Renee Silverman, New Jersey’s Senate Labor Committee