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[The Dutch Slayer]

This is HUGE!
First unions for (at least one VG enthusiast outlet)
Seriously if more would ever have this you could actually have a life and be sure that you can build a career at being video games press instate of just doing that until you get a "real job" in the industry like most folks do it now.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/feb/29/gawker-employees-first-union-contract-writers-guild

The union representing the editorial staff at Gawker Media has announced that it has successfully bargained the first union contract at a digital media company – an innovative three-year deal that sets minimum pay levels and gives Gawker’s 99 union members a 3% across-the-board raise each year.

“Once we get the contract in place, some of the other places in the industry that screw their writers a lot worse than we do will be able to have something to hold up and say: ‘This is the industry standard,’” said Hamilton Nolan, a Gawker senior writer who was one of the main organizers of the union.

In June 2015, Gawker became the first digital media company to unionize, followed by Salon, Vice Media, Huffington Post and Guardian US – which have yet to bargain contracts. When the unionization drive began at Gawker – which includes such sites as Jezebel, Deadspin, Gizmodo and Jalopnik – the management, unlike that at many companies, did not oppose it. Indeed, Gawker’s founder, Nick Denton, said he was “intensely relaxed” about it.

Unlike the vast majority of union contracts, the Gawker deal does not include a provision saying workers can only be dismissed “for cause”; they will instead remain at-will employees. Peterson and Nolan said the union’s members did not want a “for cause” provision.

Peterson said this was a field that often saw creative differences between editors and writers, adding that several union members said: “We would like the company to be able to get rid of this person if there are differences as long as they get a good severance.”

/Fire me if old

 

[jschreier]

This is indeed huge!

 

[Mr_Antimatter]

Does this include kotaku as well?

 

[The Flash]

EDIT: Meh. Bad joke that isn't timely enough.

 

[5taquitos]

Does this include kotaku as well?

Yes, it should.

Edit: As someone who writes online for a living (in a very different field), this is interesting stuff.

 

[Makonero]

Does this include kotaku as well?

Yep. Hooray Stephen and Jason and Kirk!

 

[Branniganz Love]

Does this include kotaku as well?

Kotaku is under the Gawker Media umbrella so I would think so.

 

[exmachina64]

Congrats, guys! I hope this is the first of many.

 

[Pathfinder]

Congrats, Gawker employees!

“Any decision on editorial content has to be made by the editorial side – not by business decisions or advertisers.”

Awesome. As it should be.

 

[10k]

Yay for Kotaku!

 

[DeepEnigma]

Congrats, Gawker employees!

“Any decision on editorial content has to be made by the editorial side – not by business decisions or advertisers.”

Awesome. As it should be.

Agreed!

 

[Syriel]

This is HUGE!
First unions for (at least one VG enthusiast outlet)
Seriously if more would ever have this you could actually have a life and be sure that you can build a career at being video games press instate of just doing that until you get a "real job" in the industry like most folks do it now.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/feb/29/gawker-employees-first-union-contract-writers-guild




/Fire me if old

Congrats, guys! I hope this is the first of many.

Congrats, Gawker employees!

“Any decision on editorial content has to be made by the editorial side – not by business decisions or advertisers.”

Awesome. As it should be.

This is the same union that was defending Gawker's right to out a closeted gay man, who just happened to be an exec at one of its primary competitors.

 

[DancingNalwood]

This is big. Now we could do with one for devs, get the whole industry moving forward.

 

[Waylon Drums]

I wish Kotaku wasn't a part of the shitstain known as Gawker but...good for them!

 

[Iced Arcade]

I miss kotaku being a gaming site

 

[KuwabaraTheMan]

This is indeed huge!

Congratulations to you guys. This is a really big deal.

 

[Nibel]

Good for the good people of good Kotaku

 

[EnlightenedMint]

Great to see, congrats to the workers.

 

[Pathfinder]

This is the same union that was defending Gawker's right to out a closeted gay man, who just happened to be an exec at one of its primary competitors.

Everyone makes mistakes.

But let's not pretend that the exec was completely innocent. He wasn't outed just because he happened to be a closeted gay man working at a primary competitor.

 

[bduddy]

This is the same union that was defending Gawker's right to out a closeted gay man, who just happened to be an exec at one of its primary competitors.

The job of a union is to defend its members, whether you like what they did or not. Even the worst criminals deserve fair representation in court.

 

[Imbarkus]

People working in Hollywood have to (eventually) join unions.

The people working for Access Hollywood, etc., covering them, belong to unions.

The people working at Kotaku, covering games, will now belong to unions.

The people who make games do not have unions?



If EA Spouse had been written about Gawker employees, I guess this would make more sense to me.

In general, I see the rise of collective bargaining is a clear sign of the failure of management. I support workers being able to bargain for their collective rights (hell, my dad was a Teamster), but its rougher to find a "win condition" in an industry that has its entire revenue model so volatile as that of online advertising. Did management just sort of fail to explain that AdBlocker and other factors have just dried up the revenue? Or is management really pulling in big bucks in an exploitative model?

 

[LPride]

This is the same union that was defending Gawker's right to out a closeted gay man, who just happened to be an exec at one of its primary competitors.

Unions exist to protect their employees. Thats why they work.

 

[jackissocool]

Really hope that this is a sign of future labor organizing in the tech industry. Game developers desperately need unions. That's really the only way to fix the problems of game development, because management certainly won't.

 

[LiK]

This is indeed huge!

Jason being first post made me laugh

 

[gabbo]

First Kotaku then the development side, right? ...Right?
Anyways, good to see this happen, huge move for the press side of things

 

[jschreier]

I hope this inspires both games media and game developers to think about the benefits of organizing. I know some major games media outlets pay their staff incredibly unfair wages, and it'd be great to see those staff fight for better treatment. The salary minimums we've achieved should be an industry standard.

 

[Vanillalite]

Congrats, Gawker employees!

“Any decision on editorial content has to be made by the editorial side – not by business decisions or advertisers.”

Awesome. As it should be.

What are "business decisions"?

 

[BigAT]

What are "business decisions"?

 

[InsaneTiger]

Well good luck to you guys.

 

[Skux]

I find the whole Gawker network awful (Hateful Eight script leak, Hogan sex tape, failure to disclose advertising relationships, outing a closeted gay man), but at least now their employees won't be treated as badly as their journalism.

 

[ClayKavalier]

I wonder what their salaries increased to. From what I've heard full-time staffers at places like IGN, Polygon, etc. make somewhere around $50,000. That's pretty low for the areas outlets tend to be located in like New York and San Fransisco, but pretty decent in the grand scheme of things. Maybe I'm ignorant about the ad revenue sites are bringing in but it's hard to believe that any but the biggest blogs could afford to employ many people making much more than that.

Like within Gawker, I imagine Kotaku gets a small percentage of the hits Buzzfeed does. I wonder if it works out that the flagship site subsidizes the niche ones. I'd love to see more of how the business works and it'll be interesting to see what impact this has.

 

[Syriel]

Everyone makes mistakes.

But let's not pretend that the exec was completely innocent. He wasn't outed just because he happened to be a closeted gay man working at a primary competitor.

Nothing illegal was done. The man was not a public figure. His only point of importance was that he was a high level exec at Gawker's biggest competitor.

The story that Gawker published was not only poorly sourced and completely lacking in news value, but it was a blatant violation of the SPJ code of ethics.

The job of a union is to defend its members, whether you like what they did or not. Even the worst criminals deserve fair representation in court.

Unions exist to protect their employees. Thats why they work.

If that's the case, then why does Gawker's union not require cause for dismissal?

 

[Visualante2]

People working in Hollywood have to (eventually) join unions.

Just don't mention VFX

 

[Mihos]

Honeymoon period for a union is always cool with a lot of immediate changes. Sounds like something that may have been needed in their case.

That being said, I will never, ever, ever work a union job again.

 

[Nirolak]

What are "business decisions"?

They're presumably talking about advertorials and related-type of sponsored coverage in this case.

 

[jschreier]

I wonder what their salaries increased to. From what I've heard full-time staffers at places like IGN, Polygon, etc. make somewhere around $50,000. That's pretty low for the areas outlets tend to be located in like New York and San Fransisco, but pretty decent in the grand scheme of things. Maybe I'm ignorant about the ad revenue sites are bringing in but it's hard to believe that any but the biggest blogs could afford to employ many people making much more than that.

"With some workers complaining that they were paid unjustifiably less than others, the contract sets a minimum salary of $50,000 for any full-time Gawker employee, a minimum of $70,000 for senior writers and editors, and a minimum of $90,000 for deputy editors and the editors-in-chief of some of Gawker’s smaller websites. The contract says every employee will be able to meet at least once yearly with his or her supervisor to discuss merit raises."

Like within Gawker, I imagine Kotaku gets a small percentage of the hits Buzzfeed does. I wonder if it works out that the flagship site subsidizes the niche ones. I'd love to see more of how the business works and it'll be interesting to see what impact this has.

All our traffic is public. We get around 13-14 million global unique visitors per month - https://www.quantcast.com/kotaku.com

 

[Imbarkus]

Just don't mention VFX

Ah yes, good point. The VFX side are the dev houses of Hollywood.


I suppose I came to this train of thought by considering the fate of certain game directors.

 

[Fewr]

This is the same union that was defending Gawker's right to out a closeted gay man, who just happened to be an exec at one of its primary competitors.

The world is not black and white. I condemn that thing they did before, but think this news is a step in the right direction.

 

[ShinMaruku]

This is what I like to see. When unionizing becomes something standard THEN mayb you can suggest somebody join the games media and not have to be PR or work for the devs and publishers. Well done guys.

 

[10k]

"With some workers complaining that they were paid unjustifiably less than others, the contract sets a minimum salary of $50,000 for any full-time Gawker employee, a minimum of $70,000 for senior writers and editors, and a minimum of $90,000 for deputy editors and the editors-in-chief of some of Gawker’s smaller websites. The contract says every employee will be able to meet at least once yearly with his or her supervisor to discuss merit raises."


All our traffic is public. We get around 13-14 million global unique visitors per month - https://www.quantcast.com/kotaku.com

That's excellent money.

 

[Pathfinder]

Nothing illegal was done. The man was not a public figure. His only point of importance was that he was a high level exec at Gawker's biggest competitor.

The story that Gawker published was not only poorly sourced and completely lacking in news value, but it was a blatant violation of the SPJ code of ethics.

As I said, ultimately it was a mistake and an error in judgement. But that doesn't mean that Gawker employees as a whole don't deserve to be treated and paid fairly.

 

[Dickleson]

This is great!

 

[papo]

If only the quality of the writing would improve. Hopefully we find out that all those truly atrocious articles, for example many from Patricia Hernandez( she did to article on dicks in one week) were so horrible because they were forced to write them...

If not..I hope the quality of the work improves along with their rights/benefits

 

[Imbarkus]

Well, if other outlets don't follow suit then I would imagine this will almost certainly go down as an indictment of Gawker management.

But honestly I'm poorly informed as to the presence of collective bargaining in other news/media outlets. I'm also not really certain how much of the overall digital new/media business is owned by the larger NBC, CBS, Fox etc. uber-entities compared to the new digital-only outlets. I would have expected unionization to rise from the larger outlets, just as a matter of past precedent in collective bargaining.

EDIT:

Lowell Peterson, executive director of the Writers Guild of America East, the union representing Gawker’s workers, said the deal was far different from traditional television or newspaper contracts. He said it includes an unusual provision on editorial independence: “Any decision on editorial content has to be made by the editorial side – not by business decisions or advertisers.”

In June 2015, Gawker became the first digital media company to unionize, followed by Salon, Vice Media, Huffington Post and Guardian US – which have yet to bargain contracts. When the unionization drive began at Gawker – which includes such sites as Jezebel, Deadspin, Gizmodo and Jalopnik – the management, unlike that at many companies, did not oppose it. Indeed, Gawker’s founder, Nick Denton, said he was “intensely relaxed” about it.

So the other outlets already have followed suit, and the contract differs from the apparently existing ones for big media, in the clause for editorial independence. So what NBC gets to tell me will still be dictated by GE's business needs, and Gawker reporters are free to ignore all that. I suppose the advent of that clause is a big step, and one that should be lauded.

But to my mind, the question of Gawker and these other new digital-only outlets remains: will they use their independence and newfound editorial freedom to do the difficult and thankless work of investigating corporate and institutional malfeasance, or will they pull the click-bait quick bucks subjecting ordinary people and businesses to a modified version of celebrity gossip-talk, in which everyone is a potential celebrity?

 

[ClayKavalier]

If only the quality of the writing would improve. Hopefully we find out that all those truly atrocious articles, for example many from Patricia Hernandez( she did to article on dicks in one week) were so horrible because they were forced to write them...

If not..I hope the quality of the work improves along with their rights/benefits

How would that work? If anything raising average salaries will make boring but popular stuff like that more necessary. They still make money from ads, they're not suddenly going to start publishing less content.

 

[RexNovis]

"With some workers complaining that they were paid unjustifiably less than others, the contract sets a minimum salary of $50,000 for any full-time Gawker employee, a minimum of $70,000 for senior writers and editors, and a minimum of $90,000 for deputy editors and the editors-in-chief of some of Gawker’s smaller websites. The contract says every employee will be able to meet at least once yearly with his or her supervisor to discuss merit raises."

Wow. That's honestly a lot more than I would've expected. Kinda makes you think. I mean the average starting salary for teachers is only $38,000 with a total average of $42,000 but teachers have a union. Uggh. Congratulations for Gawker employees. I just wish teachers were treated as well. It is seriously criminal how underrated and underpaid teachers are in the US. But I digress.

 

[Lime]

This is amazing news! I hope other publications and companies take notice

 

[gblues]

Congrats Gawker employees! This is legit awesome news.

 

[Vyse The Legend]

Everyone makes mistakes.

But let's not pretend that the exec was completely innocent. He wasn't outed just because he happened to be a closeted gay man working at a primary competitor.

Uh, that's exactly why he was outed, but this thread isn't about that anyway.

Good for the Gawker writers!

 

[Deleted member 126221]

This is great news! Hope it's not an isolatrd event.