REPORT: BuzzFeed Workers Plan to Stage Walkout to Demand Recognition of Union

  |  
Jun 17, 2019

According to a Monday morning report, BuzzFeed employees are planning a walkout in order to get the company to recognize their unionization.

“The Newsguild of New York says BuzzFeed News staffers plan to walk out of all four US bureaus this afternoon, and will also hold a rally in front of BuzzFeed’s NY headquarters to demand recognition of their union,” CNN’s Oliver Darcy said on Twitter.

Two weeks ago, employees as Vox staged a similar stunt during their union’s contract negotiations with parent company Vox Media:

They were successful in their bid, and managed to come to a collective bargaining agreement.

But BuzzFeed might not have the same luxury as Vox. In January, it laid off 15 percent of its staff amid financial troubles.

Big League Politics reported:

A week ago, two of BuzzFeed’sall-star “investigative journalists” reported a story accusing President Donald J. Trump of instructing his former personal attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress, a felony.

Shortly thereafter, the story imploded when Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III debunked it, in a truly embarrassing display for the world-renowned listicle website. Editor-in-Chief of BuzzFeed’snews division, Ben Smith, doubled down on the story, claiming that his reporters’ anonymous sources knew more about the investigation than the Special Counsel himself.

Now, BuzzFeed is back in the headlines, and coincidentally (or perhaps not) the network will be laying off 15 percent of its staff, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

“BuzzFeed is planning to lay off about 15% of its workforce, according to people familiar with the situation, as the company seeks to reorient itself in a shifting digital-media landscape,” the report said. “The cuts could affect around 250 jobs, the people said. The firm, among the most high-profile digital-native publishers, also is looking to realign its resources to invest more in promising areas of the business like content licensing and e-commerce, one of the people said.”

BuzzFeed’s editor-in-chief Ben Smith did not immediately return a comment request.

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