The BuzzFeed News Union is on the brink of receiving official recognition from BuzzFeed Inc. after months of attempted negotiations, the union confirmed in a tweet Friday.
“We’re excited to share that we have reached a voluntary recognition agreement with BuzzFeed,” the tweet read. “On Tuesday, a third party will conduct a card check. Once that’s completed, our union will be certified. And we can’t wait to celebrate our victory once it’s official!”
We have good news to share, but we’re not done just yet ✊ pic.twitter.com/JHUk0OzfRP
— BuzzFeed News Union ✊ (@bfnewsunion) July 19, 2019
The negotiations were first reported by Bloomberg on Friday.
While the recognition is a significant victory for BuzzFeed employees, the union expressed its disappointment that the agreement took longer than desired. The group did note that “this is a new opportunity for BuzzFeed to do right by its workers” and that it was looking forward to future negotiations with the company.
BuzzFeed News employees staged a walkout across the country last month after talks with management failed to produce recognition of the new union. The group cited poor management, pay discrepancies and job cuts as major reasons for the walkout.
BuzzFeed employees formed the union in February after 15% of the company’s staff was laid off the previous month. More than 90% of BuzzFeed’s editorial employees voted to unionize after the layoffs and asked BuzzFeed leadership for recognition and better benefits.
“Everything we are demanding is already in line with BuzzFeed’s values,” the organizing committee said in a statement earlier this year. “We want to remain spry and competitive, but we reject the argument that we must choose between freelancing in a hellscape gig economy for vampirical platforms or submitting to the whims of a corporation that botches basic HR tasks.”
An evolving digital media landscape has led to the journalism industry’s worst year for job losses since 2009 at the height of the recession when 7,914 jobs were slashed in the first five months of the year, according to Bloomberg. Around 3,000 people have been laid off or offered buyouts through May this year.
