How (and why) to build a union
Hey y'all!
I’m a union girl. I was born into it. My dad is from Madison, Wisconsin, a union town. I remember cheering on Wisconsinites protesting former Governor Scott Walker’s union busting. We even sent pizza to them from our family’s favorite Madison pizza joint.
My mom was a high school English teacher for most of my childhood and I remember her coming home from work angry day after day when her co-workers sexually harassed her.
The [male] principal played off their comments as “boys will be boys.” So she went to work each day, being sexually harassed by other teachers in front of her students. When she told these stories at the dinner table, I was furious. I wanted to take all my teen girl rage and march into the school to tell everyone off. It was the New York teacher’s union that eventually stepped in and forced the principal to enforce the sexual harassment policy. If you protect my mom, I’ll be loyal to you forever. And the union did that.
It was always my dream to actually be in a union. When I was hired at New York Public Radio as a temp worker, I wasn’t in the union, even though much of NYPR’s workforce is represented by SAG-AFTRA. I remember hearing co-workers discuss their vacation plans and encouraging me to take some time off. I didn’t know how to tell them that I couldn’t take vacation because I didn’t have paid time off [PTO] even though I worked the same hours as everyone else.
Not long after I joined, the NYPR Union renegotiated their contract with the company, and contractors and temps were among those who were added to the bargaining unit. I was finally in. Being in the union meant that I had paid sick leave and PTO. I got an annual cost of living increase. When I traveled for work, I got to count travel time towards my work hours. I got to know my co-workers on a deeper level and really felt like I was a part of the team.
I’m so inspired by the wave of unionization that’s happening across our industry. There is a lot of money in podcasting, and the people who are creating that valuable product deserve a say in how they work. I feel lucky to have talked to a few members of Gimlet’s organizing committee about their pioneering effort.
They won a union while Gimlet was being bought by a massive tech company! That’s huge.
This interview is a deep dive, but I think you’ll find it a compelling story about workers winning against considerable odds.
Back row from left to right: Rachel Ward, Drew Nelles, Saidu Tejan-Thomas Jr., Eric Eddings, James T. Green. Middle row from left to right: Matt Shilts, Soraya Shockley, Peter Bresnan, Kimmie Regler, Meg Driscoll
Rachel: I'm Rachel Ward and I'm a freelance producer in Brooklyn.
Soraya: My name's Soraya Shockley. I'm an editor at NPR currently and a freelance audio maker.
Meg: I'm Meg Driscoll and I am a producer at Gimlet Media.
Alice: Would you tell me about the early conversations that you had about starting a union at Gimlet?
Rachel: The first conversation I remember was with Drew [Nelles, at the time Crimetown’s Senior Producer]. He first approached me about whether or not I thought a union was something that we might do. And I think at the time I was like, “Hmm, I don't know, things are okay.” And then like nine months later it was like, “Hmm, things are not okay.”
Rachel: I think the idea that's worth sharing is we had a person [Drew] who had some community exposure to how you started a union in media, one of his buddies had organized MTV. And he also had a political orientation that made this a thing that he wanted to pursue.
Meg: And I had never really spoken to him before, and he was just like, “Do you want to get coffee?” I just assumed it was about crime podcasts. By the summer of 2018 we were actually meeting as a group. And then from there more people started meeting regularly.
Soraya: Back in January of 2018, things weren’t in crisis mode quite yet. But even if Gimlet was a healthy, thriving, multimillion dollar business, Drew would have wanted a union. And that was part of the impetus. I will say that I started conversations around organizing less about unions, but about organizing contractors and interns.
I was 20 when I got to Gimlet, I was an intern and I got offered a job very quickly, but as a contractor. There were a bunch of us that were getting rolled over from interns to contract full time. And what became very clear to me in December of 2017 was that we were deeply underpaid.
The way I realized that, I got an offer from The New York Times to be their first intern for The Daily and their internship pay was a thousand dollars a week. I didn't know anything about negotiating. And at that point I just told Gimlet, The Times wanted me to work there as an intern and I was very much considering it. Did [Gimlet] have a counter offer that would be in the full-time capacity? Their counter offer, I believe, was $885 a week for a full time associate producer level.
Drew was my manager at the time and he was the one that instigated the idea that other people were probably getting underpaid and that maybe I should talk to other folks. So I did start talking to people and then I think I collided with the union. We did our own organizing of the interns and contractors, and we got everyone above $1100 on that first round.
Meg: I think we didn't know initially whether contractors could be in the union because we had the wrong idea, which was that they were a different class of employee. When in fact it's a totally artificial class of employee that has been made up by the media industry. By the IRS standards, you are a full-time employee, you have the same exact expectations. So once we figured that out, then we were able to get people like Soraya involved.
I also didn't know it at the time, but I think that people have the totally wrong idea that unions are only for federal employees and blue collar workers. And I would 100% say now that everyone should have a union, every single worker should have a union. You also have to be realistic about what you can achieve with a union. I don't want to say it solves every problem. But at a baseline, we all deserve to have some agency over our own lives and over our work.
I remember early on feeling like I have no idea whether or not we're even going to have a union. Maybe we'll talk to people and maybe we won't have a union, but like, we'll try. But pretty quickly it felt like everyone wanted a union. We weren't having a ton of conversations where people were like, “No, that's a terrible idea.”
Resources
I spoke with Writers Guild of America-East Director of Organizing Justin Molito about what every newcomer to the industry should know about unions.
Starting Out: Tell me about the National Labor Relations Board.
Justin Molito: The NLRB is a federal agency that oversees labor law, and working conditions to a certain extent, and people's right to organize and right to take concerted activity. [It’s]the federal board that exists to enforce the National Labor Relations Act.
SO: What role does the NLRB play in the unionization process?
JM: It depends on the circumstances. The National Labor Relations Act provides a framework for union elections among other things, but in the process of starting a union oftentimes it's been the case that we have organized outside of the NLRB, meaning that we have one voluntary recognition from a company.
The reason for that is primarily that the NLRB hasn't really adapted with the times; for example, they don't allow for electronic voting. We think that the labor board can be an unnecessary hoop for people to have to jump through. But we have won union elections through the NLRB recently, both at Hearst Media and MSNBC. And Starbucks workers are currently using it as well. So it is a place in which workers can find their way to getting a union.
SO: If someone is reading this and is interested in organizing their workplace but nervous about retaliation from their boss, what should they know about protections in place?
JM: There's a few primary protections that exist when forming unions, one is the National Labor Relations Act, which, enforced by the NLRB, provides for protected concerted activity.
SO: Can you explain what concerted activity means?
JM: Basically you and your co-workers are working together to make improvements at the workplace. It's illegal for a company to do anything to stop an organizing effort, by intimidating, harassing, coercing or changing working conditions. There's a whole list of protections that one has when organizing a union under the law.
But more importantly, we have found that the solidarity of co-workers and workers throughout the industry adds another layer of protection. In other words, unlike the film Norma Rae, we don't have individuals step out and demand unions. We do a public campaign that includes the overwhelming majority of support of co-workers and a strong representative organizing committee.
Many of the companies that we've been organizing in media have public profiles. And it's a bad look for them to be trampling on people's right to self-organization and people's right to advocate for themselves and their colleagues. It's not in the company's interest to fight back against the union and ruin their brand.
SO: What’s the best way for people to get an understanding of what working at a union shop is like?
JM: I think the best thing to do is to talk to people who are at union shops. The Writer’s Guild has organized Gimlet, The Ringer, iHeart, and Parcast. So it's no longer a rarity to see a unionized podcast workforce.
Want to talk with people who work in a union shop? I’ve got a Twitter thread full of people ready to talk with you.
Classifieds
Note: As you will see, almost every job posting that I found this month did not include any information about pay. That’s really disappointing.
I’m a firm believer in pay transparency and the role it plays in fostering equity in the workplace. I’m tempted to omit postings that don’t list a pay range, but if I did that this month, there would be only one AP job to share with you. I’m interested in what y’all, people seeking jobs in this industry, would prefer. Let me know what you think!
Internships/fellowships
Intern, Audacy (Audacy did not share pay rates)
Community Fellowship, WHQR, ($27,000-$30,000/yr)
Associate Producers
Associate Producer, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR did not share pay rates)
Associate Producer, WWJ Newsradio 950, Audacy (Audacy did not share pay rates)
Part Time Associate Producer, NFL, (The NFL did not share pay rates)
Team Atlas Associate Producer, NPR, (minimum salary $85,000/yr)
Producers
Part-Time Producer, KUT News, University of Texas at Austin ($16-$20/hr)
Call for pitches
Inherited Season Two, Yr Media & Critical Frequency ($500 minimum)
If you are hiring interns, fellows or other entry level positions, send your job postings and rates to startingout [at] transom [dot] org and I’ll list them in the next issue. Please note that Starting Out features only paid opportunities.
Rachel Ward recommends
I'm not fucking around, listen to Oral History of Kickstarter Union.
Hot Take is like Las Culturistas but for climate news and gossip. BP and Exxon are their Housewives.
Princess of South Beach is an absolute FROTH FEST audiotelanovela that's available in both Spanish and English.
NATAL is about the birth journeys of Black parents.
My favorite interview show is David Tennant Does a Podcast With ... I honestly think he's nearly as good an interviewer as Terry Gross and I bet his staff is a lot smaller.
Know Your Enemy is often like 70 hours long so it's great background to throw on if you want to dip in and out of a show about neoliberal villains.
If you haven't listened to Floodlines yet, you fucked up.
If you haven't listened to the Scene on Radio climate and "the land that never has been yet" seasons you fucked up AGAIN.