Huffington Post Staff Formally Asks to Unionize
For the past six months, digital media companies (including us) have been unionizing in earnest. Now, the media union movement has landed another big one.
HuffPo editorial employees began their union drive in early October. Today, they formally asked the company to recognize their demand to join the Writers Guild, East—the same union that represents Gawker, Vice, Salon, and ThinkProgress. In a statement today, the union said that “Today’s call for union recognition comes after an overwhelming majority of the approximately 350 editorial staff at The Huffington Post and HuffPost Live signed union cards.”
Arianna Huffington said in October that “We fully support our newsroom employees’ right to discuss unionizing and will embrace whatever decision they make on this issue.” That would seem to indicate that the company will accept its employees request for union recognition without putting up a nasty fight. HuffPo would then become the largest digital media shop to unionize thus far.