Story Syndicate Workers Win Voluntary Union Recognition From Management

Winston Cho
·3 min read
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Workers at documentary powerhouse Story Syndicate, which has produced projects like Harry and Meghan, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark and the Unknown series, have secured voluntary union recognition from management to bargain for their share of what they called “windfall profits for the largest streaming platforms in the world” on the back of their work.

Roughly 25 to 100 producers and 12 to 30 editorial employees, depending on the number of titles in production, will be represented by the Writers Guild of America East (WGAE) and Motion Picture Editors Guild (MPEG) respectively, according to the groups. They attributed the successful unionization to a “remarkable example of inter-union solidarity.”

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The next step will be to negotiate a contract with Story Syndicate, founded by Oscar and Emmy-winning couple Dan Cogan and Liz Garbus.

“At Story Syndicate, we believe the way we work with our employees is as important as the quality of the work itself,” the company said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “We look forward to making a fair deal with our incredible employees.”

In a statement, WGAE executive director Lowell Peterson said the workers “join many other nonfiction TV creators who recognize the power of collective bargaining and the WGAE to improve standards so people can build sustainable careers doing the work they care about.”

With this win, the unions said they’ve notched “another milestone in ongoing efforts to bring about more documentary and non-fiction work under collective bargaining agreements.” While most documentary productions companies have historically been non-union, the rise of streaming companies, which have increasingly keyed in on nonfiction projects, have spurred workers in the sector to organize, they added.

Story Syndicate joins a small but growing list of documentary houses where editors enjoy union representation, including those founded by Errol Morris, Ken Burns and Michael Moore.

In a letter explaining their reasons for unionizing, the Story Syndicate bargaining unit stressed the immense profits enjoyed by streaming companies.

“Now we have secured for ourselves a seat at the table to take part in a discussion of where we are headed as a production company, as nonfiction laborers, and as an industry,” the group wrote in the letter, which urged “colleagues throughout the nonfiction sector to organize for the same representation and clout long enjoyed by our kin elsewhere in the entertainment industry.”

Alan Heim, president of the Editors guild, said in a statement that the “artists who shape these projects deserve all the recognition, respect, and workplace protections that their scripted counterparts have long fought for.”

As unions reach historic levels of support, employers appear to increasingly turn to voluntary recognition — a process in which management doesn’t force an election to prove a union is backed by a majority of its workers. This year, unions at Nickelodeon, ZeniMax Studios and Major League Baseball were voluntarily recognized.

Marvel may face the choice of whether to recognize a union of more than 50 visual effects crew, who filed on Monday for a unionization election to join the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.

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