Who joins a writers’ union? The struggle continues

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But that effort could soon end.

Last month, the WGAE board announced it would pause working with new digital outlets seeking to unionize. There is a heated debate among WGAE members about the inclusion of digital media workers in what was once a union dominated by television and film screenwriters. On one side of this debate, there is a group that wants the union to consider withdrawing WGAE digital stores. But many digital media workers, along with some traditional screenwriters, they see themselves as important allies paying dues in an overlapping and evolving industry. This number is a major point of contention between the two entries for this week’s WGAE board elections.
The WGAE and its West Coast counterpart, the Writers Guild of America, in the West, have proven to be a powerful force in creating change in the media industry. The famous WGA led a 100-day strike in 2007 and 2008 to address issues such as paying writers to use their work on the Internet. The strike reached national headlines as popular TV shows and nightly talk shows were broadcast while the writers of those shows picketed.
This strike was one of the reasons why Tamara Fuentes, Cosmopolitan’s associate entertainment editor, who works for both the website and the print magazine, said she hopes to become a member of the WGAE once his union, made up of about 500 Hearst editors. Digital media and print brands in magazines ratify their first contract.

“Having that kind of name with us and knowing that they want to support us and knowing that they are willing to do anything to make sure we get the victories we so rightly deserve, is such a great honor and privilege.” Said Fuentes, who is part of the negotiating committee of Hearst Magazines Media Union. “Feeling that some people aren’t so happy that we’re involved … it’s a little bad because we just want to help each other.”

A “bright spot” that gets dark

Gawker’s union was innovative for the digital media industry. Gawker ‘s former writer, Hamilton Nolan, wrote before The 2015 union voted that he and his colleagues “would like to make sure things like wages and hikes are done fairly, transparently and impartially” and suggested that “all jobs could use a union “. Six years later, many digital media companies are getting and have gotten these benefits and more.

“It’s been a really bright spot throughout the labor movement,” said Nolan, who is now a labor reporter for In These Times magazine and the WGAE board.

The WGAE, founded in 1954, had about 4,000 members during the 2007-2008 strike. But in recent years, that number has grown to more than 6,000, largely due to the incorporation of more than a thousand workers in digital media.

Nolan told CNN Business that he began to hear “murmurs” of dissent around the organization of digital media among WGAE members a few years ago, but believed it was a “minority sentiment” until the year past. He is now one of seven candidates on the solidarity board running on the WGAE board. The ticket’s position echoes Nolan’s writing in 2015: “Everyone deserves a union,” the campaign website says.
But the opposite ticket, Inclusion & Experience, questions the new organization. His campaign website says television and film screenwriters could become “a minority in the guild they founded.” Concerns include financial instability, in part because of a hypothetical situation in which WGAE members could move to WGAW and take their dues.

Christopher Kyle, a longtime board member who participated in the Inclusion & Experience ticket and ran unopposed for secretary-treasurer, told CNN Business that for every $ 1 in fees paid by digital members, the guild spends $ 3 to organize and service them. Some union members, including those on the solidarity board, would argue that it is a worthwhile investment.

“I think this is just a cynical short-sighted way of looking at how to run a union, measure the dollars in the book sheet to see if what we’re doing is succeeding or not,” said David Hill, vice president of the National Writers Union and a former organizer of the WGAE and other unions.

“We don’t succeed or fail if we get more revenue,” Hill continued. “We succeed or fail in the labor movement if we really hold the bad bosses to account, if we really raise the standards, the standard of working and living of professional media workers.”

Michael Winship, a board member with the Inclusion & Experience ticket and running unopposed for the presidency, served as WGAE president from 2007 to 2017 and at the time approved Gawker joining the guild. He then oversaw the digital union boom at the WGAE.

“I blamed myself among others for that,” Winship told CNN Business. “We thought it was a good idea to increase our membership a little bit, but it became such an avalanche of people as overwhelming.”

Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, a board member who holds the Inclusion & Experience ticket and is running unopposed for vice president, said the guild wants to be more transparent and communicative with members than during the rise of the digital organization.

“None of this is the fault of our members of the digital media. You can’t blame them for thinking the organization would continue at a breakneck pace,” Cullen said. “That’s the guild’s fault.”

The “strongest model” for organized work

The July email informing WGAE members of the organization break and the election campaign has been a wake-up call for grassroots members unaware of the turmoil.

“I was surprised,” Alison Herman said. writer of the sports and cultural site The Ringer. “My experience working with WGA staff members, the East and even meeting with some board members has been nothing more than full support and enthusiasm.”

Herman said he learned of the debate on social media, specifically on Twitter. He has since used the platform to make it public shares his support for the solidarity board i pressed repeatedly screenwriter David Simon, who is running for a third term on the Inclusion & Experience ticket board, in his position.

Simon, who has been a member of WGAE since 1985 and is the creator of the hugely successful show “The Wire,” told CNN Business that he believes the interests of current members are at odds.

Unions are “stronger when they target the industry they are trying to influence,” Simon said. “Merged unions are in many ways, while capable of self-sufficiency and providing basic services to members, they are not the strongest model for what collective bargaining and organized labor can achieve.”

One of Simon’s concerns is that digital store board members would vote against a strike in the future.

“Significant contractual issues for screen and television writers may seem secondary if the struggle for them disrupts the organization and goals of other sectors,” Simon wrote in a recent blog post.

Sara David, astrology editor at Vice Media, who is running for the Slate Solidarity board, told CNN Business that she plans to be on the side of her peers.

“I don’t understand all the rhetoric about journalists coming in to steal their power and mess up their priorities when we literally just want to be by their side,” David said. “I would link the guns to a janitor, a nurse and a teacher if that would strengthen my negotiation.”

Inclusion & Experience ticket members, however, see a future in which digital media workers will become their own independent union or function as a local WGAE division. Simon suggested that some stores might be more suitable for NewsGuild, another union he was part of when he worked as a journalist at The Baltimore Sun. The board has set up a subcommittee to conduct a member evaluation and propose options.

Josh Gondelman, a comedian and television writer who serves on the Slate Solidarity board, argued that growing membership in the WGAE, including digital media workers, is “good for general power and the end result of the union in the long”.

“We find it short-sighted to set these limits based on the ways we deliver news and entertainment,” Gondelman wrote in an email to CNN Business. “This is what studies do to avoid paying fair rates to streaming entertainment writers in many cases.”

Nolan, the former Gawker writer who is also a member of the Solidarity blackboard, stressed that the election result should not further divide the union.

“We can’t get out of this election by acting like we’re enemies of each other,” Nolan said. “We have to work together and that makes us stronger.”

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