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The already tenuous relationship between Condé Nast and the union representing more than 400 of its employees Vanity Fair, Vogue And GQIn other publications, it appears to be hanging by a thread.
On Wednesday afternoon, 35 Condé union members marched into executives' offices to protest additional layoffs they allegedly threatened during labor negotiations Tuesday. During the first contract bargaining session on Tuesday, the company said it wanted to add five more employees to its existing list of employees to be cut, and warned the company could add more. Nast Entertainment, Taste good food, Allure, Architecture Digest, Condé Nast Traveler, Epicurious, Teen Vogue, Glamour And Self. (Some New Yorker (Employees bargain in a separate union.)
The Condé Union also alleges that the company did not offer any counterproposals — such as remote work and paid time off — during Tuesday's meeting on Zoom, for example, when management abruptly ended last week.
Meanwhile, Condé Nast on Tuesday filed an unfair labor practice charge against the News Guild of New York, the umbrella labor organization of Condé's union, for “bad faith, surface bargaining.” . The company's reasons are that in four months of negotiations “they [the union] Still not seriously addressing our workforce reduction plan,” it said in December, making only one proposal related to layoffs, calling for at least seven months of layoffs for affected employees and just 28 cuts instead of the 94 originally proposed by Cobra.
“We have also informed the union that we will begin proposing cost-saving measures to offset ongoing salary-carrying costs that are not in our 2024 budget,” the memo said. “Despite our best efforts to avoid this, the union's delay has left us with no choice but to find these cost savings. We told the union today that we will add additional roles to the proposed cut list.
Susan DiCarava, president of the News Guild of New York, said in a statement that it was “a blatant attempt to force us to accept this allegation.” [management’s] Layoff plans.” He added, “As we negotiate throughout, we are willing to negotiate when management wants to stop theaters and negotiate in good faith.”
The new layoffs were proposed two weeks after Axios reported Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch said the company had “no further cut plans,” which has angered the union and its members. Lynch first announced on Nov. 1 that the company wanted to lay off five percent of its workforce, and the Conde union has been negotiating those cuts ever since. Before Tuesday, the company told the union it was monitoring 94 union members, or 20 percent of the Conde union. “What happened on Tuesday was a total display of administration playing with people's livelihood.” Vanity Fair Social media manager Mark Allen Burger said in a statement. “This is simply unacceptable, and we show that today.”
According to Vanity Fair Neither Lynch nor chief content officer and global editorial director Anna Wintour, staff writer and store manager Erin Vanderhoof, who participated in Wednesday's protest, were in the offices during the protest. The management met in one room as the workers protested. “It's unclear where those five jobs come from, or even if there are five jobs, but I can't say that some of the people already on the list are very fundamental in helping Conte Nast weather the storm of the entire digital media decade,” he said.
Employees on the layoff list are reportedly being reassigned to a team separate from their previous brands, called the “central content division.” While the exact work CCU will do is still unknown — staffers are expected to receive their assignments by Monday, March 25 — the team will report to Chris DiPresso, vp of content finance and operations.
Conte's union and management are negotiating a first union contract from September 2022. The two sides' relationship has remained contentious since the November 1 layoff announcement, when the News Guild of New York (the parent union of Conte's union) filed the initial unfair labor practice. Employees walked out on January 23, when the allegations against the company and the nominations for the 96th Academy Awards were announced in January — a major news day for such topics. Vanity Fair. The NLRB has yet to rule on NewsGuild's unfair labor practice charges.
The parties are set to return to talks on Thursday.
Additional reporting by Lachlan Cartwright.
