Employees at Downtown Digital Media Firm Protest Cuts to Health Plan, Win Protections
For several weeks in June, passersby at Zuccotti Park were confronted by the sight of a picket line marching in front of One Liberty Plaza, where several dozen fresh-faced protestors in their 20s and 30s carried signs emblazoned with slogans like “No Page Views without Healthy Workers” and “Don’t Read Our Stories Until Workers Get a Fair Deal.”
Welcome to class struggle in the digital age. One Liberty Plaza is the headquarters of Insider Inc., the online home to journalism brands such as Business Insider. The company is owned by German media conglomerate Axel Springer SE, which ranks among Europe’s largest publishers both in print and online.
In April, 2021, more than 300 employees at Insider banded together to form a collective bargaining group, which they dubbed the Insider Union. This upstart labor organization was certified by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) a few months later, and soon affiliated with the News Guild of New York, a local of the Communications Workers of America. The News Guild represents staffers at local media companies such as the Daily Beast, the Daily News, the New Republic, The New Yorker, People magazine, Reuters, Scholastic, Sports Illustrated, Time magazine, and Wired.
Last November, the Guild filed an “unfair labor practice” charge against Insider with the NLRB, alleging that the company had violated labor laws by moving unilaterally (and without collective bargaining) to change workers’ health care coverage, significantly increasing employee costs while dramatically reducing coverage. This May, the NLRB agreed that the charge had merit. That acknowledgment, combined with an announcement that the company was planning to lay off dozens of staff members, catalyzed the strike that began on June 2.
For 13 days (which the News Guild describes as “the longest digital media strike in history”) scores of online reporters, editors, designers, and video producers marched in a circle on Liberty Street. While they were undeniably earnest in the resolve, their affect lacked the bitter recriminatory tone so often seen in Lower Manhattan labor protests, especially those involving a giant inflatable rat positioned in front of a building. Perhaps because of their youth (the average age appeared to indicate that most were born sometime after O.J. Simpson was acquitted of uxoricide), the demonstrators evinced a lighthearted conviction that everything would work out for the best.
In the end, that was pretty much what happened. In a deal reached on June 14, Insider Inc. and the Insider Union agreed on a wage “floor” for union members of $65,000 per year, along with immediate raises of 3.5 percent for most union members (followed by pay boosts of 3.75 percent and 3.0 percent in 2024 and 2025, respectively). The agreement also establishes a layoff moratorium through the end of this year for union members, and a commitment to reimburse employees for more than $400,000 in healthcare costs. The accord also stipulates more parental leave and vacation time. Finally, the new contract confers for the first time “just cause” status on union members, which means that management cannot discipline or dismiss employees at its own discretion. (The competing legal standard, “at-will employment,” allows for workers to be fired “for any reason or no reason at all.”)
William Antonelli, a tech reporter at Insider who is also the Insider Union steward, said, “we won one of best union contracts in the history of digital media. We also proved that the News Guild of New York is a ‘striking union.’ When our rights are under attack, News Guild shops aren’t afraid to withhold our labor for as long as it takes to win.” He added that the Insider Union members have “unanimously ratified our contract, and we’re already seeing its benefits in our everyday work. Vibes are good.”
A spokesperson for Insider said the firm “is pleased to have reached an agreement with its newsroom union on a collective bargaining agreement,” which “formalizes many of the company’s existing practices, policies, and benefits, including top-of-the-market competitive pay, freedom to work from anywhere in the U.S., 16 weeks of parental leave, and many successful [diversity-equity-inclusion] initiatives. With this contract, we will continue to offer pay and benefits at the high-end of our industry.”