G/O Media Workers From Gizmodo, Jezebel, Kotaku and More Go on Strike

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorMembers of the union representing about 100 editorial staffers at G/O Media publications — including Jezebel, The Root, Lifehacker, Kotaku, Jalopnik and Gizmodo — have gone on strike after its contract with the company expired Monday at midnight.Gizmodo Media Group Union, organized with the Writers Guild of America, East, unanimously approved the strike (with 93% of members voting) after the union’s second contract expired Feb.

28. Members of the GMG Union began picketing outside G/O Media’s offices at 1290 Avenue of the Americas in New York City on Tuesday.In a statement, the GMG Union said, “In 2015, this union broke new ground when it organized the first digital media union.

Now, GMG Union will break ground yet again: We are the first digital media shop to go on an open-ended strike for a fair contract.” In a memo to G/O Media staff, CEO Jim Spanfeller wrote that he was “disappointed we could not come to terms on the current GMG Union contract.

We bargained in good faith right up until the deadline late last night when the Union voted to cut off talks and strike.” Spanfeller claimed that the terms G/O Media offered the union were “not only equivalent to, but in some instances better than, terms agreed to by The Onion Union (GMG’s sister union here at G/O) just one year ago.”“We are struggling to understand why terms agreed to by half the editorial union members last year are not acceptable to the other half now,” Spanfeller wrote in the memo. “Unfortunately, that puts G/O Media in an untenable position with regard to these current negotiations.”G/O Media was formed in 2019 after Univision sold Gizmodo Media Group and The Onion to private-equity firm Great Hill Partners and Spanfeller,.