Bustle Employees Still Work Without a Contract Two Years After Unionization

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’s portfolio includes Bustle. Mic. Inverse. Elite Daily. BDG announced that it would recognize BDG union and participate in bargaining talks in November 2020. Insiders with knowledge of the contract talks told 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.

Talks through 2021 were dominated by the dispute over process. Both sides couldn’t get to grips with many issues in the short time they had. 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.

According to WGAE officials, the BDG negotiations are much longer than the previous contract negotiations. The union has rapidly increased the number digital media outlets that it oversees and has negotiated more lengthy talks over the years.

Bustle Digital Group representative stated that the company was committed to reaching a binding agreement in good faith and with the bargaining group.

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.

The BDG talks were just one example of the difficulties facing the WGAE in its quest to increase unionization to larger companies that have different structures. The WGAE is also in contract talks with Hearst Magazines for more then two years. Hearst Magazines did not voluntarily recognize the union, and instead waged a legal war with the National Labor Relations Board. This decision was in favor of WGAE since its members voted to unionize. official NLRB electionIn July 2020.

Officials from WGAE said that although progress was slow, there have been some improvements in BDG’s key areas. 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. Insiders claimed that the union and BDG reached an agreement on several DEI measures within the contract after hearing testimony from union members. However, the details of the contract are still being finalized.

However, the most contentious issue between the parties is how part-time employees of BDG can take advantage of the economic gains from this contract. This includes company-wide raises as well as paid time off and other 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,”Collette Reitz (news editor, Elite Daily) is a member the BDG Union bargaining commission. “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.”

While negotiations continue, WGAE says it is escalating its public organizing around the negotiation, trying to raise awareness among digital media circles about the need to provide union benefits for part-time writers.

Emma Sarran Webster is well aware of the importance these benefits can have for part-timers. Mic promoted her to a full time editor position after she had worked her way up from a freelancer and was now a part-time employee. She was not eligible for health or paid time off. Mic saw a lot of cuts and she was able to stay employed. This month, earlier, 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.”

If that fails to produce any progress, insiders say the bargaining panel has not ruled it out of announcing a deadline to reach a contract. 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. Insiders claim that the BDG Union does not have any immediate plans to establish a similar deadline.