Years-long contract fights at media companies came to a head in 2024. Unions from the New York Times, NBC and Forbes issued warnings to leadership about their intentions during critical events for the company in recent months.
Here is a breakdown of some of the biggest moments:
The New York Times Tech Guild
The New York Times‘ ability to provide Election Day coverage and analysis was in jeopardy during this year’s election week as hundreds of the giant newspaper’s disgruntled tech staffers went on strike in protest of its ongoing clash with management, citing “unfair labor practices.”
Beginning on November 4, the day before the 2024 Election, the New York Times Tech Guild announced it was going on a strike, which lasted for a week. The Tech guild voted to unionize in March 2022 and was in negotiations with leadership for over two and a half years in an effort to get a contract.
The New York Times Tech Guild went on strike this year over “unfair labor practices.” (Fox News Digital)
The Tech Guild’s 600 members are in charge of the back-end systems that power the paper’s extensive digital operations, working in Engineering, Product, Design, Data and the project management office.
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During election week, Times staffers dressed in red marched and chanted outside the paper’s Midtown Manhattan office with “Scabby,” the giant, inflatable rat that is symbolic of New York City labor disputes, perched outside 620 Eighth Avenue.
“We are not a joke, we are not playing,” a Guild leader told the crowd on Nov. 4.
A New York Times Company spokesperson previously told Fox News Digital that the newspaper was “disappointed” in the timing of the strike.
New York Times tech worker strike (Fox News)
At stake was the Times’ famous “Election Needle,” which would show the likelihood of Trump or Harris winning. While the needle eventually made it onto the NYT’s website, albeit a bit later in the night than in previous years, no state-level or non-presidential needles were live on election night.
In addition, because of the strike, IOS news was not displaying ads intermittently, marking a significant loss of revenue for the company, the apps and website were slow to load, publishing issues produced error messages for readers on articles and updates, and Times subscribers received hundreds of thousands of emails with broken links, according to the NYT Tech Guild announcement.
However, a Times spokesperson described the newspaper’s election week coverage as “by far our smoothest site performance during an election ever,” according to a statement to Fox News Digital.
After a week of striking, the New York Times tech workers returned to work without a contract. But, on December 11, the NewsGuild of New York, which represents the Times Tech Guild, reached a deal on a three-year contract following the union’s week-long strike in November.
Members of the The New York Times news division stood in solidarity with tech employees on strike during Election Day 2024. (Fox News Digital)
NBC Digital Union
NBC’s digital employees also took action this year in an effort to get a contract for their newly formed media union. On the evening of November 21, the group projected scathing messages onto 30 Rock, blasting company leadership for dragging its feet on a contract.
NBC Digital NewsGuild, a collective bargaining unit of the NewsGuild of New York, called out NBC News executives for alleged “unlawful behavior” by lighting up “breaking news” messages on the company’s flagship building in midtown Manhattan.
The NBC Digital NewsGuild, which represents reporters, editors, designers, video journalists, animators, social media strategists and editorial staff of NBC News Digital, have been negotiating their first contract since the group unionized in 2019.
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The projections specifically targeted NBCUniversal News Group Chairman Cesar Conde, as well as NBC News Editorial President Rebecca Blumenstein, Executive Vice President of Programming Janelle Rodriguez, Executive Vice President of News Catherine Kim and Executive Vice President of TODAY and Lifestyle Libby Leist for engaging in tactics that they say have violated labor laws, including layoffs of more than 20 union journalists without bargaining and retaliating against union members for taking part in protected activity.
“Cesar Conde and his leadership team have a bad habit of breaking the law,” Tate James, video editor and union leader, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “But now he’s dealing with a newsroom full of journalists who are sick and tired of working without a contract and trying to chase their bosses down in court. NBC News executives are obsessed with shareholder value, but they’re disrespecting the workers that create that value in the first place. We deserve a fair contract, and we’re not backing down from this fight until we get one.”
Additionally, in 2021, the National Labor Relations Board found that NBC had unlawfully withheld more than $350,000 in raises from union journalists, according to a press release shared with Fox News Digital. The union has not reached a deal with union management.
Forbes Union
The Forbes Union, which was also formed in recent years, walked off the job on December 3, 2024, a crucial day for the company.
The union, which represents the magazine’s editorial staffers, issued a warning to management, scheduling its walkout on the same day as the release of Forbes’ well-known “30 Under 30” list, which includes 20 lists of 30 influential people under 30 years old who are recognized for their achievements in various industries.
Members of the union, who said they are fighting for fair wages and reductions in force and severance protections, told Fox News Digital that management has been stalling at the bargaining table for nearly three years.
The Forbes Union demanded that the company stop “illegally and unilaterally” pulling people out of the bargaining unit.
A Forbes Union spokesperson told Fox News Digital that management has incorrectly claimed that some of the Forbes Union members are “management” and, as a result, should not be part of the union. The union said the tactic is a common anti-union practice, which it is fighting through its unfair labor practice charge on management’s misclassification of members, in an attempt to shrink the Forbes Union.
Forbes Union three-day walkout in January 2024 (Forbes Union)
Members of the union spoke with Fox News Digital about the timing of the walkout, which coincided with the launch of the company’s “30 Under 30” list to highlight the work it takes to put out the lists.
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“The Under 30 list is a really high profile list for Forbes. It gets us a lot of attention,” Andrea Murphy, unit chair and statistics editor for Forbes, said. “But it does take the work of basically every single team in the newsroom, months and months of work to put a list like this together.”
“The scope is intense,” she added. “There’s not really one part of the newsroom that’s not involved in this, and so we felt like walking out on this day kind of highlights how much work it takes to do this level of journalism day in and day out. We want to basically use some of the attention and spotlight that this list gets every year and shine a little bit of it on our contract fight.”
Forbes Union three-day walkout in January 2024 (Forbes Union)
Murphy said management has been dragging its feet and suspects it is a tactic used by companies to diminish the enthusiasm for a union by “slow walking” the contract fight.
“Of course, they don’t tell us that when we’re sitting at the bargaining table,” she added. “They claim they’ve been doing this in good faith all along.”
The union has not reached a contract with Forbes management.
Fox News Digital’s David Rutz, Brian Flood and Nik Lanum contributed to this report.
