BuzzFeed has agreed to pay its recently laid-off employees for their unused paid vacation days after a petition letter shared by current and former employees received almost 600 signatures, a spokesperson confirmed Monday.
BuzzFeed laid off 15 percent of its staff last week in an attempt to increase profit margins ahead of a possible merger. The BuzzFeed layoffs came the same week as cuts hit other media giants, including Yahoo, Huffington Post, and Gannett, altogether totaling roughly 1,000 people.
A letter drafted by the BuzzFeed News Staff Council described BuzzFeed’s handling of the layoffs as “ deeply upsetting and disturbing” because the company was “refusing to pay out earned, accrued, and vested paid time off for almost all US employees who have been laid off.”
Published on Saturday, the letter demanded that the organization, which “has always prided itself on treating its employees well,” make “the only justifiable choice” of paying employees for vacation days that went unused because they were “so dedicated to their work, and, in some cases, felt actively discouraged from taking time off.”
A BuzzFeed spokesman confirmed to the Washington Examiner via email “that the decision was made to pay out earned and unused PTO and comp days as part of the severance packages for U.S. employees impacted by these layoffs in states where this is not required by law.” Previously, the petition letter — which had 585 signatures as of Monday night— had stated that only employees in California would receive monetary benefits for unused paid time off due to state law requirements.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you to the nearly 600 BuzzFeed employees who signed this letter and stood in solidarity,” an update to the letter reads. “Your support made this happen.”
BuzzFeed is paying every laid-off employee 10 weeks pay and benefits through April. The decision to pay for unused paid time off will be “covered by an addendum to the separation agreements for those outside of CA,” BuzzFeed’s spokesman said.
