News flash! Eustace is a dad. And even Eustace’s butterfly is ready to go on strike. Drawing by Reilly Branson, reillybranson.com, Instagram: @rad_reilly. By permission.

They were less than 200 people, who made a difference for many more — about 120 in the New Yorker Union, and in their sister unions 18 in Ars Technica, and 15 in Pitchfork. They won a hard-fought contract with owner Condé Nast. It was a life-changing win with meaning reaching beyond their office walls. The grievances of these largely youthful staffs were the grievances of their generation of creative workers, and of precarious workers generally — unemployed, underemployed, underpaid in at-will jobs, abused at work, while reminded how fortunate they are.

I work with art and writing students who have some tough years ahead, if they want to do the work they love and that can draw on their skills, creativity and progressive values. They are writing poetry, novels, articles, making art, on the way to the dream job. Most likely just a dream,  something writing or art-related, that also pays the rent. Meanwhile they wait tables, work as low-paid editors, web content providers, and gallerists, juggling part-time jobs, working at will or on short-term contracts.

I hope they look at what these three unions did and feel some optimism when they graduate and are asking themselves what comes next. I hope that they find some inspiration in this victory and that this group of fewer than 200 creative workers will have made a difference for them.

Tactics matter: Playing the media against the media bosses
Before I get into why it could matter, let’s look at what the three unions had to do.  First they faced down the intimidation of their bosses. They moved past the myth that they should feel lucky to work at their “dream jobs,” which sound so good at the party or look so good on the resume or the obituary. Their picket sign nailed it: “You Can’t Eat Prestige.”

Lauren Leibowitz captured a bold, assertive action right in management’s face only a month after staff announced they formed the union. Gathering for this picture in the New Yorker office, they showed they would be fearless (probably weren’t, seems like a scary thing to do for at-will workers).

That was their first big step, uniting the three staffs –  in the New Yorker Union both full-time staff and permalancers, editors, fact checkers, proofreaders, web producers, designers, and writers also in the other two unions. How could these three groupuscules stand up to one of the biggest magazine publishers, Condé Nast, and its media Leviathan owner, Advance?

They played the media against the media bosses with some elegant media judo. The media focus was on the New Yorker, where the union tarnished the prestige brand by exposing the chasm between the liberal magazine’s professed values and its shameful mistreatment of the essential creative workers on whom its prestige depends. In a two-and-a-half year rebellion, they gave us one lesson after another in how to make the news media and the public pay attention.

So when Condé Nast blew them off, they were just the people who could blow up the insult on the front pages. Condé Nast had to take the New Yorker union seriously when they threatened to sabotage the New Yorker Festival in Sept 2020. The union set up a pandemic-designed “virtual” picket line, getting the keynote speakers to agree not to cross it until the New Yorker agreed to end at-will employment. When these lowly staffers brought Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Elizabeth Warren, and Eric Holder into their story, the media had to pay attention. And that’s when Condé Nast caved on one of the union’s most basic demands – an end to at-will work. The three companies could no longer fire staff without just cause or even without an explanation.

The unions had been waging a fierce and funny Twitter war, mobilizing support and RTs from reporters, editors, media professionals of all kinds, as well as readers and the many and various networks of progressives. This newly formed audience was entertained by the New Yorker Union’s sly appropriation of the magazine’s iconic mascot, Eustace Tilley. But for the union, Eustace had no monocle and raised his fist, or held a union picket sign. Text, of course, in the New Yorker’s signature typeface.

From Twitter into the mainstream
The union’s guerrilla tunnel warfare on social media surfaced in the mainstream. First their one-day strike in January. For management, it was a warning that the union was strong enough to mobilize its members to strike. For the public, the strike brought an embarrassing disclosure: The  New Yorker base pay was only $42,000. Twitter lit up with support, writers, including some former New Yorker staff, telling their stories of low-wage hardship. The union tweeted and retweeted comments pointing out the racial implications of substandard wages, one by NY Times political reporter Astead W. Herndon: “u start ppl in your fancy nyc newsroom at 45k a year and you’re not interested [in] diversity or new voices or anything like that. you’re interested in rich kids.” NewsGuild made a point of this in their strike announcement:

“The New Yorker wasn’t made for people who look like me, and while I dream of that changing, I know that people like me can’t work here. They can’t afford to work here,” said Naib Mian, a researcher at the magazine who sits on the union bargaining committee.

Then in June, as they made preparations for a strike, the three unions,  supporters (and reporters)  marched to Anna Wintour’s front door. Vogue editor and Condé Nast’s Global editorial director, she may not have been involved in negotiations, but she was the preeminently visible symbol of the huge and prestigious media company. The action showed up the vast gulf in wealth between boss and worker, bringing the cameras to Wintour’s $12.5 million townhouse to photograph workers whose rent consumed half their income.* The satirical depiction of Wintour in “The Devil Wears Prada” also made her a perfect target, as did reporting about Wintour’s belated efforts to rectify racism at Vogue.

The unwelcome visit was irresistible spectacle for the news media, with photos and video of these cool young people chanting their rough music, “Bosses wear Prada, workers get Nada!” and “Condé Nasty you can’t hide, we can see your greedy side!” Videos spread through social media, showing the workers’ camaraderie and high spirits. The high spirits infected one of Wintour’s neighbors. He handed out drinks to the protesters, delighting the Daily Beast’s Lachlan Cartwright, who tweeted the photo. The marchers then went for celebratory pizza in Washington Square Park.

The company was furious at the union’s rude rally, and maybe managers worried they might be the next target. The support the three unions were getting from other unions and freelancers was emboldening. It made clear their fight was not theirs alone, but a cause for media workers, who are unionizing at an accelerating pace. After almost three stressful years working to unite against management insults and intransigence, it was “healing.” That’s how Gili Ostfield of the New Yorker Union bargaining committee described it: “For me it was sheer catharsis.”

This was a labor struggle that reporters could understand. Many of the journalists  who reported on them and retweeted their posts were also in the NewsGuild, and I’d bet that many of their editors were secret supporters. (But not the Times’ Ben Smith.**)

New Yorker Union throws more art bombs
As the unions geared up for a strike, their creative output reached a crescendo. There was New Yorker Union’s June 10 Tweet — it’s a GIF. More witty, New Yorker-style fun for the union’s audience, but portentous for management. What would the content of “The New Yorker Strike Issue” be like, when would it be published? (Management would note the warning in small type: The strike issue cover was dated “June 2021.”)

If we strike, don’t fret! You’ll still have something to read. Here’s a sneak peek at the cover of our Strike Issue—written, edited, fact-checked, designed, and produced by @newyorkerunion members. “In Solidarity”: art by @BormesGenevieve; animation by @neetadotworks. pic.twitter.com/5Yzy9CpxTz

— The New Yorker Union (@newyorkerunion) June 10, 2021

“You look at that strike cover, and it looks like a New Yorker cover,” said Gili Ostfield. “They must have had a moment when they looked at that and realized everything else we put out would be just as good as the actual New Yorker magazine. And that scared them! it really does show that we are the ones that make the New Yorker and we can take that away from you and do it ourselves and you won’t see a dime.” 

And then there was another art bomb a few days later. They had already appropriated the magazine’s “mascot,” Eustace Tilly. Now they repurposed the magazine’s weekly cartoon caption contest, asking Twitter followers to retweet the union’s cartoon with a quote. It looks like a New Yorker cartoon; it shows two (New Yorker) staffers spread-eagled on the giant gears of a monster machine, reminiscent of that classic Charlie Chaplin scene in Modern Times. You can happily get lost in the hundreds of witty captions readers supplied. Reading through them all, the clever drawing keeps its good looks and doesn’t get old. Brilliant outreach, involving people with a fun way to show support.

                                       What’s your caption? Look to your job for inspiration.

All these potshots could give management pause, but their website was heavy artillery. With elegant design, it detailed the demands and grievances, some of them shockers to readers who valued the brilliance and professionalism of the product and discovered the shabby treatment of its creators. Full-time salaries started at only $42,000 in one of the most expensive cities, where a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan has a median rent at $5,100/month, twice the median rent in Chicago. The “typical annual salary” in New York County for media professionals is $69,496, according to  M.I.T.’s living wage calculator.(Lia Russell, Columbia News Service.)

The news reporting focused on the low wages, enough of a reason to strike. But on the New Yorker Union website, and in the union’s Twitter, we learned with what arrogance and abuse this woke management treated its employees. We learned that managers could require overtime, without overtime pay.  (Two pregnant staffers were reportedly fired for refusing overtime.) We learned that these underpaid creatives were not allowed to freelance or work other jobs without permission from their boss. We learned they wanted protection from discrimination and abuse, some complaining of a “toxic environment.” We learned that when HR would call them in to “investigate” the complaints, workers were not allowed to bring a representative into the meeting. We learned that The New Yorker, which proudly published Ronan Farrow’s “groundbreaking report” on Harvey Weinstein which “helped open the floodgates of the #MeToo movement,” used Non-Disclosure Agreements. We learned as well that there was no transparency in pay and benefits. They drew our attention to the lack of diversity in what we thought was an anti-racist, feminist magazine, and they demanded diversity in hiring and promotion, training and retention, and gender neutrality.

They also had a page explaining how supporters could join them on physical picket lines “throughout Manhattan” and at digital events  (warnings of some surprises for management). There was a form for supporters to send messages to New Yorker and Condé Nast executives, and instructions for joining “a digital boycott”: Don’t click on newyorker.com links or use the New Yorker app during the strike.

Their vision of what The New Yorker should be

But beyond strike warnings and grievances, the website shapes a vision of what a union should be. Its home page headline: “Meet Our Union.” On other union websites you might see a photo of a union leader or one worker representing them all. The New Yorker Union is not like that.

Their “Meet Our Union” page shows you photos of almost 100 staffers, each saying in captions why they are in the union and why they are ready to strike. Their photos drive home a lesson and another warning to the company – this union has the active participation of its members. The page reads like theirs is a caring community made in the heat of shared wrongs, shared vision, shared risk and shared sacrifice. These people are ready to fight not just for higher pay, but to make their workplace a community of respect and caring. “I’m prepared to strike,” wrote Ryan Gelis, “because, even before the contract, the union has facilitated a better working environment for me and my peers and fostered a greater sense of camaraderie in our workplace than ever existed before.” We can see that in some recurring phrases in the captions: “my brilliant coworkers,” “my extraordinary colleagues,”  “exceptional work,” “brilliant,” “my world class colleagues,” “intellect, courage and integrity.” And concise and eloquent in the shortest caption, Emily Clancy’s, “Take care of each other.”

Care for their colleagues, but also broader solidarity with media workers and working people. Web producer Crispin Long wrote, “I want my wonderful colleague to get the fair wages they deserve, and I want to work in a media industry that is more just and egalitarian.” And Eleanor Martin: “I believe in narrowing the gap between the highest paid and the lowest paid, in the country and in my own workplace.” Or Jasper Lo, fact checker: “I’m taking a stand because I refuse to perpetuate a system that allows only rich white kids to shape our culture.” Marella Gayla: “Low wages and inadequate job security have forced too many people out of our profession — worker solidarity gives me hope for the future of journalism.”

What they won — a model contract for precarious workers
The three unions won a settlement that lays “a foundation that will raise standards at Condé Nast and throughout our industry” and is also a model for all precariously employed workers.

• Huge pay increases: $55,000 floor, up to $60,000 by the end of the contract, increases of up to 63% (New Yorker), 58% (Pitchfork), 35% (Ars Technica).
• Limits on health insurance increases.
• Job security: Staff can’t be fired without “just cause”; severance and health insurance for laid-off workers; restrictions on use of “permalancers,” who had been about 20% of the staff.
• 40-hour work week, 8-hour day, with overtime or comp time for additional work.
• Ban on Non-Disclosure Agreements for employees claiming harassment or discrimination.
• Diversity and inclusion: Committees for each unit, data-reporting tracking outcomes, 50% of people interviewed for open jobs will be from under-represented groups (not including women, who are over-represented at The New Yorker).

Some lessons from the New Yorker Union’s campaign

• Liberal cultural elites can be illiberal bosses.
• Powerful companies with prestigious brands are vulnerable to public shaming.
• The three unions showed the power of a convincing threat to strike — months of preparation, with demonstrations of worker unity and commitment.
• Tactics that are new and creative are more likely to get media coverage, more likely to encourage and inspire. Scabby the Rat has a place, but he’s getting old; at the least he needs some young, smart creatives on the picket line with him. Unions can benefit from old and off-the-shelf images and tactics, but can also express their own identity, like the New Yorker Union putting a picket sign in Eustace Tilley’s hand.
• One tactic that never gets old: Solidarity. The tsunami of messages of support exposed Condé Nast even more than the media coverage. It included many local and national elected officials and other unions, who would join them on the picket line. Teamster Local 804 threatened to honor a strike picket line and refuse deliveries at One World Trade Center, headquarters of Condé Nast, as well as almost all the local TV stations.
• “The master’s house can’t be dismantled with the master’s tools” … but it can be remodeled with them. The New Yorker Union used canny media tactics to draw unwelcome attention to their media bosses’ hypocrisy.
• Everyone understands wage exploitation, but a union can also set an example with a message that goes beyond wages, ready to fight for solidarity across race and gender and for a workplace that is a caring community.
• News reporting on labor unions typically focuses on wages and benefits, leaving out an equally big part of the story of unfair treatment. Lack of respect and humiliation can give rise to powerful emotions in the workers and can gain empathy from observers.
• Unionization in media is one part of a bigger story. The New Yorker union is part of a wave of revolts and pushback in the culture industry, as cultural change over racism and patriarchy sweep through media companies, museums, schools and universities. Professionals, and white collar workers more broadly, are part of this trend; teachers, nurses, airline workers are among the most active and left sectors of the labor movement.
• #MeToo and Black Lives Matter have forced media companies to profess progressive values on racism and sexism. More diverse staffs are challenging them to practice these values in the office, in hiring, promotions, assignments, interpersonal relations, HR practices.
• “Meet the union” shows an overwhelmingly youthful union with the progressive values of their urban, college-educated generation. The media workforce is changing its profile, and younger staff are challenging legacy routines and values.***
• Many on the New Yorker staff were relatively privileged, living poor to work at the New Yorker, many with degrees from the Ivies, some with two or three, one with four degrees. The low pay excluded talented creatives without family who could  help with rent. But privilege can come with a bigger megaphone, and they used theirs to make way for others, for staff diversity and to raise standards for media and other low-paid workers.
• When workers understand their struggle as part of something greater, making history even if in a footnote to history, that gives meaning to sacrifices and courage to persevere.
• Media and cultural workers don’t have the power of UPS workers to stagger the economy in a strike. They play a different strategic role in cultural change, as they filter, reframe, legitimate, propagate ideas, values, social experience. The more they see themselves as workers and unionize, the more likely media will be supportive of working people and people of color, of progressive values and projects.
• The media attention has focused in an unfairly exclusive way on the New Yorker Union. The New Yorker staff have the bigger megaphone and use it well for all, but you need to look at the Pitchfork and Ars Union Twitter feeds to appreciate how great a contribution they made to the struggle, sharing in the personal risks, the leafletting in the streets, the protests and the vote to strike. I was impressed by their support for freelancers and how much support they received from so many writers, editors, musicians, digital media workers, readers. A number of their present and former writers felt these were their dream jobs. I think of all of these people as examples for us, dream defenders. Their participation highlighted the important part of the New Yorker Union message, that the New Yorker Union was not just fighting for itself, but for media workers and low-paid workers everywhere. I’m sorry I don’t know enough to add more of their narratives.

The New Yorker Union is not the labor movement. Workers at Amazon and Walmart are more typical, facing far more powerful companies with ruthless anti-union management seemingly immune to public shaming. The New Yorker is also exceptional among media outlets, highly profitable, prestigious, with high visibility to their target audience and dependent on respect from the progressive urban intelligentsia. Therefore vulnerable to media exposure. Staff in most of corporate media lack these advantages and can fall prey to raptor capital, hedge funds like Alden Capital, which has added the Chicago Tribune to its long list of media companies it buys and strips of assets, with massive layoffs of journalists.

For the future of journalism and creatives in media, as well as precarious workers generally, strategy has to combine unionization and direct action with electoral politics, where political restraints can be imposed on Wall Street. Political action can also put protections in place for public goods like journalism and arts institutions As the three unions drew near a strike, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer tweeted his support for a strike, and fourteen New York City Council members called on the New Yorker and Condé Nast “to agree to fair contracts.” They added their voices to twenty NY State Senators, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and, of course, Bernie Sanders.
—Paul Elitzik
Reprint terms: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Below find a few notes, including NY Union’s tweet about its pay study (the study is no longer on the web) and some recommended reading.

First, a few acknowledgments.

Again my thanks to Reilly Branson for his cartoon. When he was illustrator for the student newspaper of the School of the Art Institute, he won awards for best editorial cartoon from the Associated Collegiate Press, the College Media Association, and the Illinois College Press Association. Now graduated, he’s freelancing as an illustrator and drawing buildings for an architectural firm. He needs to draw more cartoons!

I learned a lot writing this article, in particular from reading through the Twitter feeds of the three unions. Worth doing to appreciate the love and stress that can go into a union drive.

Notes
*Anna Wintour’s salary is reported to be $2million with a $200,000 clothing allowance and a net worth of $35 million (or is it $50 million?). Condé Nast lent her $1.6 million interest free to buy her Greenwich Village Townhouse. New Yorker editor David Remnick is responsible for the negotiations, reporting directly to Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch; Wintour “has no real involvement in The New Yorker,” despite being Condé Nast’s chief content officer, worldwide.

**Ben Smith, the Times’ media columnist, wrote a piece implying that the New Yorker’s “stars” may support the goals of the staff but didn’t like the union, objected to the tactics and confrontational style, and were afraid of “being bullied on Twitter if they diverge from union talking points.” Two days after Smith’s column appeared, New Yorker staff writer Alexandra Schwartz tweeted, “I’ve learned a ton from watching this process over the past three years. Most recently: don’t trust everything you read in the Times.” Quite a few of the featured writers Smith identifies with tweeted in support of the union, and one of the people he quoted, Emily Nussbaum, found fault with his reporting. “The impression the NYT piece leaves is really misleading,” she tweeted, “and suggests a division that doesn’t exist.” Smith had written, “It’s all particularly personal at The New Yorker, where the campaign has pitted a culture built on personal relationships and deep trust against a group of employees who reject the idea that they should be subject to the whims of any boss, no matter how benign.” You can judge for yourself how the disgracefully underpaid staff shared in the “culture built on personal relationships and deep trust” and whether there’s something wrong with rejecting being subject to the whims of a boss. Smith, incidentally, is not a member of the Times Guild and was management, editor-in-chief with stock options, when Buzzfeed workers unionized and won a contract after a hard fight. His somewhat ambiguous attitude toward media unions is in this article. Just the right person to write about a strike of at-will media workers.

***Another example is the turmoil at the NY Times. Staff were outraged when the paper published Sen. Tom Cotton’s “fascist op-ed,” calling for the use of troops to suppress demonstrators after the murder of George Floyd. The Op-Ed page editor James Bennet resigned, and Times writers publicly criticized the Times’ “both sides” policy for the section. Staffers who organized in that protest went on to challenge discrimination in hiring, and now Times tech workers formed the Times Tech Guild and are fighting Times union-busting. Note the photos of the Tech Guild’s youthful organizing committee.

Hamilton Nolan in In These Times published an excellent piece on the NY Times Tech Guild a few days too late for me to take it into account in my article: “Shrugging Off Anti-Union Campaign, New York Times Tech Workers See a Chance to Make History. Times workers plan to ride the media union wave right onto a bigger wave of tech organizing.” 

The New Yorker Union pay study is no longer available online, but here are some insights:

The main conclusion of our analysis is that ​most unionized employees of @newyorker​ are underpaid​, many severely so. Here are some other takeaways: https://t.co/AW39vEEepA pic.twitter.com/AnP3TndUBT

— The New Yorker Union (@newyorkerunion) January 19, 2021

.@newyorker's racial demographics do not reflect the diversity of N.Y.C. Our unit is 56% white, 16% Asian, 11% Black, 7% Latino, and 7% people of two or more races. Almost two-thirds of full-time union members are women, the majority of whom are white. pic.twitter.com/VSeG94F0zI

— The New Yorker Union (@newyorkerunion) January 19, 2021

Recommended:
Dissent Magazine. “Belabored: Strike Averted at the New Yorker, with Gili Ostfield.” The best narrative of the union campaign is this interview with Gili Ostfield, member of the bargaining committee. Gives a good idea of what it took for the staff to organize, the tactics and the importance of many small workplace actions, the back and forth with management, the importance of the demands.

Shoutout to the grad student at Columbia Journalism who wrote one of the best pieces of reporting on the union campaign: Lia Russell. “New Yorker Union Fight Escalates.” Columbia News Service, April 8, 2021.