Labor & Employment Law

Daily Beast Employees Join Newspaper Guild

By James Parks

Workers at the Daily Beast electronic news service will have the same benefits and pay as some of their new co-workers at Newsweek after the two companies merged last month.

Under a framework agreement with the workers’ new union, The Newspaper Guild/CWA (TNG/CWA), non-supervisory editorial employees who produce the Daily Beast will be covered by the same union contract that now covers many of Newsweek?s journalists.

New York Newspaper Guild President Bill O?Meara says:

Newsweek?s Guild members are proud to be part of this exciting new venture that will combine the journalistic resources of a venerable news magazine and a cutting-edge news website in an editorial workplace in which all employees will have a voice.

Daily Beast employees, whose pay is below the minimums set by the Guild-Newsweek contract, will be brought up to scale and their seniority will be dovetailed with that of Guild-represented Newsweek employees. The agreement also calls for voluntary buyouts to be offered to certain current Newsweek employees. Details regarding the buyouts still have to be negotiated.

The Daily Beast workers  join other writers who have recently become union members. Some 100 writers, producers, associate producers and researchers at Lion Television voted last week to join the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE). Also, WGAE won the majority of votes in National Labor Relations Board elections held at two nonfiction TV production companies, Atlas Media Corp. and ITV Studios.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on January 31, 2011 (boomark / email).