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BuzzFeed Journalists Vote to Unionize in Wake of Layoffs
- randyrand 8y agoSingle company unions are very interesting. There’s often very little reason not to join a single company union. Not joining means your coworkers will already dislike you, and typically your pay will be higher anyway. This makes single company unions incredibly easy to form strong monopolies on their employers labor supply. Contrast this to monopolies in the greater market, a company typically needs to dominate the entire industry to form an effective monopoly. Effectively unions limit a company’s labor supply to a single supplier - the union - despite there often being hundreds of other near identical suppliers/unions in the greater marketplace. Imagine if you could only buy smartphones from Apple, and other people could only buy smartphones from samsung. That’s effectly what single company unions accomplish. Quite miraculous.
- rhcom2 8y agoThey didn't join a single company union though as far as I understand. Other members of NewsGuild-CWA: http://www.newsguild.org/mediaguild3/?p=5130 http://www.newsguild.org/mediaguild3/?p=5130
- aerotwelve 8y agoThe system you describe as a "single company union" -- which seems to be a closed shop contract with a union that operates a hiring hall -- has been illegal in America since the late 1940s. Therefore, that is not at all what Buzzfeed's journalists are organizing here.
- fromthestart 8y agoI think this is a perfect anti union example. These "journalists" were probably laid off because the market was not interested in their highly politicized outrage "journalism," possibly in addition the recent expiration of the Countering Disinformation and Propaganda act. A union would only have kept these people onboard as dead weight.
- yyyymmddhhmmss 8y agoI am the last person who would ever defend the journalism you’re talking about, but I would defend every living person being valued somewhere above “dead weight”. I get your point, but nobody deserves to be considered as nothing more than a potential utility for an enterprise to exploit. We need to talk about alternatives.
- jerkstate 8y agoIf they unionize that means that the company as a whole would reap what they sow with their editorial direction, instead of being able to just lay off the employees who carried out the marching orders. Their listicle and quizlet department can't save them now. I'm for it.
- darawk 8y ago> If they unionize that means that the company as a whole would reap what they sow with their editorial direction ...And so you mean the company would fold. What would be good about that?
- yyyymmddhhmmss 8y agoSo you think the employees should be responsible for the management’s ability to keep the ship afloat with the type of journalism they hire and direct the employees to produce?
- hlieberman 8y agoSomething to be applauded, but I fear that this may be too little too late, especially considering Buzzfeed's heavy dependency on "community content" (read: unpaid work).
- ng12 8y agoThis is what unions are for. SAG exists (in part) so greedy studios don't cast desperate actors without pay.
- Barrin92 8y ago>Something to be applauded, but I fear that this may be too little too late Well you could also see it as history repeating itself. We're only at the start of the new gilded age and now it's service workers and people higher up the value chain that are seeing the consequences of squeezes in the work place. Maybe this time around it'll be IT workers and journalists who discover that organised labour exists.
- dmix 8y agoAs far as I can tell the vast majority of unions almost entirely existed in dead industries that all moved to China (and now that China's wages are rising as they develop mature markets to other countries behind the times) or have very close connections to gov work.
- detaro 8y agoHollywood actors and screenwriters moved to China?
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- Arn_Thor 8y agoThose developments didn't occur in a vacuum. American industry and politicians have for half a century worked tirelessly to crush American unions or render them as ineffective as possible. There are plenty of examples of countries with strong unions, solid industry/services sectors and workers that aren't being exploited (read: underpaid, overworked, poor or unsafe working conditions, etc.). Every benefit you have as an employee that is enshrined in law was fought for by a union!
- skilled 8y agoDo people read BuzzFeed because it's something to talk about during breaks at work? Other than clickbait, does the site provide any kind of meaningful content? Does BuzzFeed operate on a 'vision' or 'goal-driven journalism' ?! I never saw the site for more than a junkyard selling bullcrap to make money.
- ahoy 8y agoNone of that has anything to do with the topic of unionization.
- tricolon 8y agoThey do some serious journalism: https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/staff-buzzfeed-news https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/staff-buzzfeed-news
- cf498 8y agoBuzzfeed-news is a separate entity if i am not mistaken?
- mcintyre1994 8y agoPresumably that’s the entity that hires these journalists and is relevant to this discussion though?
- ringaroll 8y ago> They do some serious journalism MUAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHA Are you serious? Every so called journalist at Buzzfeed deserves to get fired. Just look at them on Twitter. They cant even take criticism. No one wants to watch their shitty content, hence they're getting laid off.
- King-Aaron 8y agoDo you know what the pulitzer prize even is? There's some serious bias on display in this thread, HN can do better.
- fucking_tragedy 8y agoThis is great news. Other industries, including software and IT, would stand to benefit from unionization, as well.
- CryptoPunk 8y agoLook at Detroit in the 1950s (highest median income in the US) and look at it today (a ghost town), to see the long term effects of unionization on industry. The reason the US software industry has been getting stronger and producing ever greater numbers of high paying jobs is that it enjoys the efficiencies of a free market in labor, aka it's not dominated by monopolizing unions.
- freeone3000 8y agoThe impact of the gas crisis, a preference for foreign imports, and the continued (real or percieved) lower quality of American-made vehicles might act as several intervening factors for the fall of Detroit; moreover, while all unions intervene on behalf of their employees, not all enforce wage ceilings. The Screen Actors Guild is a counterexample for both points - Hollywood continues to be world-leading, and top actors continued to be paid well, while even the actor you've heard the least of has a minimum wage, down to rules around how many times they can be called-back for an audition. The free market relies on free association, equal footing, and complete information for both parties. For most people, the business has a significant power advantage. Moreover, management is organizing together in order to depress wages through non-poach agreements - why shouldn't the workers work together as well?
- CryptoPunk 8y agoHollywood is a counterexample, I'll grant you that, but I'd argue it's only because the nature of film making - with many short-lived independent productions - doesn't give unionized work units the monopoly control they would have in large stable production facilities, like factories, and moreover, due to being cultural work, is very difficult to outsource. Numerous industries in both the private and public sector have declined since being unionized. Germany seems to have strong unions and a strong auto industry, but the German economy as a whole has suffered decades of wage stagnation. One outperforming industry alone doesn't negate the broader correlation between restrictive labor laws, and degraded economic performance. >>The free market relies on free association, equal footing, and complete information for both parties. A free market merely means anyone is free to offer their products/services, and everyone is free to take the best offer on the market. There are plenty of market failures and government-imposed market distortions, but the idea that locking the market down with one-size-fits-all labor relation rules is going to mitigate the harm of these distortions is unbelievable. It's just going to make industry less effective, and in the long run, less beneficial to its workers.
- flashman 8y agoBuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti told employees in 2015 that "when you look at companies that have unionized, the relationship [between managers and employees] is much more adversarial." I suppose the remaining employees have taken the layoffs as a sign that management IS their adversary.
- yyyymmddhhmmss 8y ago“More adversarial” means “less dictatorial”. Obviously some or most bosses are not evil. Some are, and they get away with it because they can. Democracy is a beautiful thing. We should have it in our workplaces.
- ardy42 8y ago> I suppose the remaining employees have taken the layoffs as a sign that management IS their adversary. Nah, basic economics says that now that the supply of employees at Buzzfeed has been reduced, the remaining employees have more leverage to negotiate with management as rugged individualists. /s
- mc32 8y agoI don’t suppose they’ll care to bail the company out with their own finances if the company were to teeter on bankruptcy for the sake of collectivism...
- skookumchuck 8y agoUnions should regard businesses as their customers, not their enemies. The relationship should not be regarded as zero-sum, i.e. that the union can only win if the business loses, and vice versa.
- geezerjay 8y agoIt's hard to keep looking at their employer as something other than their adversary when he just fires dozens of your fellow colleagues.
- CryptoPunk 8y agoI expect this will affect the political impartiality of Buzzfeed journalists. They will have a direct financial interest in discrediting the idea of a free market in the public eye.
- hexane360 8y agoAs opposed to non-union media organizations having a direct financial interest in discrediting the idea of unions in the public eye?
- Arn_Thor 8y agoBy your very own logic the editorial board/owners of news media have a financial interest in discrediting the idea of collective bargaining and profit sharing in the public eye, instead promoting free-market ideas at all costs. If you claim they don't, then you can't draw that conclusion for unionized journalists either
- CryptoPunk 8y agoOf course, the owners are not going to support restrictive labor relations laws that are directly aimed at reducing their private property and contracting rights in order to enable their employees to extract above-market wages from them. But it's pretty hard for owners to prevent this kind of outcome. You are legally restricted from exercising your right to free association and only employing people who oppose unions, if you ever become an owner.
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- dfischer 8y agoI do not see unionizing as the solution. The entire industry needs to reinvent itself. It's totally understandable to seek security; but the issue is deeper. This wouldn't be the economic solution that can sustain itself – it maybe allows temporary job security. The platforms that exist today are in danger of capitulating because the common consumer of our zeitgeist no longer has the behavior to pay for what they use. Social media has absolutely destroyed what paying for a product means. The common consumer has become used to not paying online because they are the product. These businesses are not sustainable no matter what in the current zeitgeist of ad money and social media. Besides the option of all journalists working for Twitter and Facebook which wouldn't be my pick... but that's another topic. We need something radically different to offset that imbalance.
- olefoo 8y agoSo like, a Basic Income Guarantee, Single Payer health insurance not tied to employment and maybe some sort of jobs program we could use to solve a couple of pressing problems involving climate change and failing infrastructure? Sign me UP!
- repolfx 8y agoThese businesses are not sustainable because their costs exceed their income. It's perfectly possible to make profitable and sustainable news outlets. The Times of London is profitable and has been for years, for example, because it put up a paywall and creates journalism people are willing to pay for. The Daily Telegraph also posts healthy profits. I'm afraid there's a a very clear correlation here that people seem to be in denial about. There isn't a problem with people paying for news. There's no problem with the internet and there's no need for new business models. News can be profitable and for some firms, it is. What's not profitable is freely distributed left-wing agenda journalism like Buzzfeed: the market is saturated, and the people who make it do it primarily for influence and not to build a business. As a consequence they not only woefully over hire, but they are also loathe to put up paywalls and take other obvious steps more conservative, more business oriented media outlets have been willing to take. A simple contrast is between the Guardian, which had as of a few years ago over 1000 journalists, no paywall and massive losses, with the Times, which turned a profit. To illustrate the irony here is an opinion piece in the Guardian asking whether this "joltingly unlikely thing" is "worth it": https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/dec/07/is-profit-worth-price-times-paywall https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/dec/07/is-profit-wort... > Murdoch’s flagships are locked behind a barrier that throttles traffic and, arguably, relevance. But they made £1.7m last year. Well, is being a sustainable business worth it? Is it better to be able to pay the bills or be "relevant"? These are probably not questions most working people have the luxury of asking, and given the state of the Guardian's finances, soon it won't be a luxury they have either.
- mesozoic 8y agoSeems like the kind of thing Buzzfeed would be all for
- yesimapro 8y agoLearn to code
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- nine00001 8y agoWhy don't they just learn to code!? duh!
- deleteme12345 8y agoLean management may be the answer