Bustle Staff Still Working Without a Contract 2 Years After Unionizing

It has been nearly two years since more than 200 staffers at Bustle Digital Group successfully unionized with Writers Guild of America East, but union members still don’t have a contract with the company.

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.

The dispute over process hung over talks through 2021, as the two sides could only get so far tackling several sticking points in the limited time allowed. Even when BDG and WGAE came to terms on extending meetings to as much as four hours — they currently run two-and-a-half hours, according to insiders — those meetings did not happen more than twice a month.

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According to WGAE offiicials, the BDG talks are far more drawn out than past contract negotiations the union has negotiated over the past few years as it has rapidly grown the number of digital media outlets under its umbrella.

A representative for Bustle Digital Group said that the company is intent on reaching a final agreement in good faith with the bargaining unit.

After taking a pause to overhaul the union’s structure, WGAE has recently negotiated a new union contract with Vox Media and recently added iHeart Podcasts and Pineapple Street Studios to a labor list that includes Gizmodo Media and The Ringer, among others.

But the hurdles with the BDG talks are an example of the challenges facing the WGAE as it seeks to expand unionization to larger companies with different structures. The WGAE has also been in contract talks for more than two years with Hearst Magazines, which unlike BDG did not even voluntarily recognize the union and instead waged a legal battle with the National Labor Relations Board, which ruled in favor of WGAE as its members voted to unionize in an official NLRB election in July 2020.

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Despite the slow pace, progress has been made with BDG in some key areas, WGAE officials said. Upon creation of the union, the bargaining unit called for a significant expansion of BDG’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies, including initiatives to hire more writers from underrepresented groups and clear procedures to deal with tokenization and workplace discrimination. After hearing testimonials from union members, insiders said the committee and BDG agreed to several DEI measures in the contract, though the specifics remain under wraps until the contract is finalized.

But the biggest divide between the two sides remains over how much part-time staff at BDG can benefit from the economic gains in this contract, which include company-wide raises, paid time off and health care benefits.

“We were able to reach our DEI goals for the contract thanks to strong support from the union, with members of the bargaining unit coming in and explaining directly to management why these initiatives were so important,” said Collette Reitz, news editor at Elite Daily and member of the BDG Union bargaining committee. “Unit solidarity has also helped us with some economic goals like raises across the board, and we know it is the best tool we have going forward.”

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While talks continue, WGAE and the bargaining unit says that it is escalating public organizing around the negotiations, trying to raise awareness within digital media circles and the readership of BDG sites about the need for part-time writers to have union benefits.

Emma Sarran Webster knows how important these benefits can be for part-timers. It was only recently that she was promoted to a full-time editor position at Mic after working her way up from a freelancer to a part-time staffer when she did not have paid time off or health benefits. She also avoided being laid off after widespread cuts took place at Mic earlier this month, and said that she’s been thankful for the BDG Union’s support as those layoffs cut many writers she worked closely with.

“I have been an employee for about a year, so I wasn’t part of the union when contracts started, but it has been really encouraging as someone who hasn’t been in a union before to see what we can achieve with solidarity,” she said. “We have seen so much restructuring and layoffs both at my site and throughout the industry, and that’s the reason why it is so imperative to have a contract so that writers feel protected.”

Should that not lead to any progress, insiders said the bargaining committee has not ruled out announcing a deadline for a contract to be reached. Members of another WGAE-affiliated union at Vox Media-owned animal website The Dodo have set a Nov. 1 deadline to reach a contract and are threatening to strike if there’s no deal by that date. For now, insiders said the BDG Union has no immediate plans to set a similar deadline.

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