Staffers at Vice Media have ratified four master contracts with management covering 200 staffers represented by the Writers Guild of America.
The deals cover staffs at Vice Editorial, Vice News, Viceland, and Vice Digital, representing the company’s reach across multiple platforms including nightly television news, weekly documentaries, nonfiction TV series and real-time digital news, both written, and video. The Vice Editorial agreement renews the contract first ratified in 2016 while the other three are first-time agreements for the employees.
“Collective bargaining ensures that WGAE-represented employees have the opportunity to discuss what’s most important in their work lives, what needs to be changed and what needs to be strengthened,“ said Lowell Peterson, executive director of the WGA East. “We are very pleased by the concrete gains negotiated for people who craft content on the entire range of platforms, and we look forward to a productive relationship with Vice management for years to come.”
The contracts include a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in both staff and coverage, including codifying anti-harassment, and anti-bias policies and training.
The WGA East has been active in organizing digital news sites for the past three years and now reps about 1,000 members in that area, including Vice, HuffPost, the Intercept, Gizmodo Media Group (Splinter, Gizmodo, Jezebel, Deadspin, the Root, Lifehacker, Kotaku, io9, Jalopnik, Earther), ThinkProgress, MTV News, Thrillist, and Salon.