Belabored: Strike Averted at the New Yorker, with Gili Ostfield

Belabored: Strike Averted at the New Yorker, with Gili Ostfield

Reflections on what The New Yorker Union won, how they did it, and what other workers can learn from their victory.

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After two and a half years of bargaining, virtual picket lines, and a credible down-to-the-wire strike threat, the workers at the New Yorker—and Pitchfork and Ars Technica—have an agreement for a union contract. The last couple of months have seen heightened tensions and a very-much-not-virtual picket at the home of Anna Wintour, the Global Chief Content Officer of Condé Nast, the company that owns the publications in question. The workers are very pleased with the contract they won, which includes substantial raises and improvements to working conditions. In this episode, we speak with Gili Ostfield, a member of The New Yorker Union’s bargaining team, about what the union won, how they did it, and what other workers in media—and outside of it—can learn from their victory.

We also speak with North Carolina care worker Samantha McLeod about good care jobs and the American Jobs Plan, and with Ligia Guallpa of the Workers Justice Project about organizing delivery workers in New York. Then we look at legal weed and labor peace in Connecticut and “lying flat,” a perhaps-new resistance movement to always-on work culture in China. For Argh, we continue to consider rest—and the culture war’s invasion of the classroom.

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