Digest 12/6/2021

Buzzfeed News Union walks out, Williams-Sonoma X Drew Magary, and more.

BUZZFEED STAFFERS WALK OUT…AND INTO TWITTER SPACES

BuzzFeed News staffers held a digital walkout on Thursday while company shareholders voted to take BuzzFeed public. Despite two years of negotiating, the unit has yet to secure a satisfactory contract due to, among other things, management’s refusal to provide more than a 1% guaranteed wage increase and a $50,000 salary minimum. Other issues include worrying language regarding traffic and revenue metrics, and an “onerous” policy regarding outside work. The walkout was planned on the day of the vote to highlight the “very clear contrast to the company’s priorities, which are making rich executives richer,” Addy Baird, politics reporter and BuzzFeed union unit chair, told Intelligencer. 

As part of the walkout, over 200 staffers and supporters gathered in a Twitter space where speakers Eric Morrow (a news curation editor at BuzzFeed), Katie Notopoulos (tech reporter at BuzzFeed), Ema O’Connor (politics reporter and member of the BuzzFeed union bargaining committee), Julia Reinstein (reporter and member of the BuzzFeed union bargaining committee) and Baird were joined by NewsGuild president Jon Schleuss, and Wirecutter’s Nick Guy and Insider’s William Antonelli, who are also members of the Guild. 

In the Space, speakers clarified that BuzzFeed offered a potential 2.5% merit increase instead of increasing the 1% guaranteed wage increase, which the speakers argued encourages pay disparity between teams and employees who hold different levels of power in the company.

A major issue appeared to be BuzzFeed’s reported attempt to broaden their policy towards and definition of outside work, likely intended to combat the rise of reporters leaving traditional organizations for Substack. However, the union says the policy language is so sweeping that it would apply to regular social media use.  

“Potentially arguably, I would have to send my boss photos of my outfits before I could put it on Instagram, and I don’t want to have to do that,” O’Connor said. “That is an unacceptable way to frame the future of digital media.”

Notopoulos said that when challenged on the policy, BuzzFeed management countered by saying that employees who did not want to seek permission for these things could work for BuzzFeed as freelancers — a designation with far less job security, and often no healthcare. BuzzFeed did not respond to a Study Hall request for comment.

While the Twitter Spaces conversation led by BuzzFeed staffers briefly digressed to which dogs would be pro-union and which dogs would be anti-union (“Any purebred dog is management,” Baird insisted, whereas people couldn’t quite agree which side Scooby Doo fell on), the Space ended with passionate messages from unit members and allies. 

“Management across the industry needs to know that we’re not going to stand for this treatment as we make them millions and billions of dollars, literally,” Guy said.

“They know the only way they’re going to win is if they tire us out,” Reinstein declared. “And they’re not going to tire us out.”

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FORMER SHAPE EMPLOYEES ALLEGE UNPAID WORK

In November, Meredith closed down Shape’s print magazine and laid off a number of print employees, seven of whom were doing double duty on Shape’s print magazine, and Sweet July, the wellness magazine from Ayesha Curry.

According to a source familiar with the situation, the seven employees had repeatedly raised concerns to their supervisors about being asked to work on Sweet July in addition to their Shape workload without additional compensation. Once laid off, the employees, represented by NewsGuild, demanded to be paid out for their work on Sweet July, and also noted that another issue of Sweet July still remained. Instead of budging on severance — two weeks per year of service — Meredith instead are asking the laid off workers to continue work on the Sweet July issue as temporary employees, with continued benefits. However, the employees would still be responsible for paying for their share of the benefits, while making far less than their regular salary due to intermittent work hours. For instance, a week’s worth of a paycheck could be consumed by a month’s worth of benefit contributions, per the source. 

The Meredith Union went public with the Sweet July dispute last week, but has not heard any update from the company, according to the source. The union also reached out to Ayesha Curry and has not heard back. 

“The allegations, including those by the NewsGuild labor union’s spokesperson, are not reflective of the facts, our values or how we do business,” said Meredith in a statement that was sent to Study Hall through the reps of Sweet July. “This is a matter strictly between Meredith and the NewsGuild. These are not employees of Ayesha Curry or AC Brands. Neither Ayesha Curry nor AC Brands has any responsibility for employee compensation or management. We look forward to continuing discussions with the NewsGuild’s negotiating team and reaching a resolution.”

The employees hope that they will both get paid for their work, and also that their public condemnation will prevent publishers from doing something like this in the future. 

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WILLIAMS-SONOMA X DREW MAGARY PEPPERMINT BARK COLLAB WHEN?

Since 2012, writer Drew Magary’s Hater’s Guide to the Williams Sonoma Catalog has appeared annually on Deadspin, and then Vice, before finally landing at Defector last year. After almost a decade of Magary’s sharp and incredulous commentary, it appears Williams Sonoma may finally be dishing it back. The 2021 Holiday catalog has appeared online, and one of the pages (the one about peppermint bark) uses the name “Drew” to illustrate how buyers can customize their packaging. 

“I got a kick out of it,” Magary told Study Hall over email. “My wife doesn’t buy that it was a deliberate shoutout to me, and I was like YES IT WAS HOW DARE YOU.”

Williams Sonoma did not return Study Hall’s request for comment, but Magary told us the only thing that matters: A 2021 Hater’s Guide to the Williams Sonoma Catalog will be coming soon.  

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COMINGS AND GOINGS

— Bryan Logan, Benjamin Goggin, and Kat Tenbarge are all departing Insider to join NBC News. 

— Cody Corrall is leaving WTTW Chicago to join BuzzFeed News as a news curation editor. 

— Lexi McMenamin is joining Teen Vogue as a news and politics editor. 

— Manny Fidel’s position at Insider was eliminated after six years following “a change in Insider’s editorial direction.”

— Allie Pape is joining Insider as a features editor. 

— Noel King is leaving NPR after six years, four of which were at Morning Edition. 

— Conniei Wang is leaving Refinery29 after 12 years to join Netflix’s lifestyle team, which previously snapped up a number of laid-off Refinery29 staffers. 

— Sonia Saraiya is leaving her role as TV critic at Vanity Fair to freelance. 

— Laura June is now the managing editor of Bitch Media. 

— Kjerstin Johnson has left The Ringer. 

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EVERYTHING ELSE

— According to Axios, a GoFundMe page for striking Wirecutter staffers earned almost $43,000, enough to compensate them for the overtime hours they missed out on during the five-day work stoppage held by the union in protest of stalling negotiations with New York Times management. 

— The city of New York has brought the first “large so-called pattern-of-practice case” of the Freelance Isn’t Free Act against L’Officiel Magazine, a French magazine that launched a US edition in 2017. Peter Hatch, the commissioner of the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, told the New York Times that the department began sending notices to the magazine in 2018, and all but two of the 24 complaints now cited in the lawsuit were ignored. According to the Times, a single worker is owed up to over $15,000. The lawsuit is asking for the freelancers to receive double their unpaid wages.  

— In a YouTube video, musician Benn Jordan alleges that former New York Times journalist Ian Urbina “scammed” at least 462 artists by soliciting them for work to accompany the release of his 2019 book, The Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier, based in part on unsubstantiated promises of promotion and making royalties off their contributions. Urbina disputes the characterization, referring to the backlash as “mass trolling” via Substack, but there’s a good breakdown of this complicated battle on Input. 

— Chris Cuomo bye bitch.