Inching Closer To the Finish Line (We Hope)

At our last two bargaining sessions, we continued to make progress in important areas, like hours and overtime, and came to a tentative agreement (TA) on reductions in force and severance.

But we’re still far apart on some key proposals.

Here are the highlights:

REDUCTIONS IN FORCE & SEVERANCE: TOOT TOOOOT! Time to blow the victory horn — we had a major win on this proposal. And that means this issue is officially KO'd. I mean, TA'd. 

Here's where we landed: The union will get 30 days to discuss alternatives to layoffs and employees will receive a two-week notice regarding any such layoffs. (Yes, that means the company can notify affected employees after 15 days of discussion with the News Guild, though the talks would continue for another 15 days after those notifications.)

If layoffs do happen, employees will get a minimum of eight weeks of severance, plus an additional week for every six months of service up to a maximum of 24 (!) weeks. Laid-off employees will also be placed on a recall list for a year afterward, which means they could be re-hired in the event the same (or a comparable) job becomes available, and guaranteed at least an interview with a hiring manager for any other position they qualify for. 

Needless to say, this is huge!

OUTSIDE WORK: We accepted all of management’s changes from their last counter with the exception of one word: News. Where they referred to needing approval for work that is “competitive with BuzzFeed,” we edited their language to “competitive with BuzzFeed News.” Of course, this word makes a huge difference. We don’t want to have to get approval to do work that may conflict with the rest of the company but not our specific jobs. We believe we should be able to post sourdough recipes or makeup tutorials on Instagram without our managers’ OK because they don’t own us like that!

Management seemed to appreciate that we are trying to get this across the finish line, but they continued to resist agreeing to a policy that would only apply to work competitive with news. 🙃

HOURS & OVERTIME: Management finally backed away from their proposal that employees should only get comp time for work done on a scheduled day off and acknowledged that this is not the way it works now! The company again proposed continuing the current policy of awarding comp time only in four-hour increments. We agreed to this in our latest counter but also proposed a flexible solution for situations where an employee works more than eight hours, but less than four additional hours. We’ve suggested that it should be up to the employee and their manager to work out a reduced schedule another day to compensate for <4 hour increments. We also proposed that if overtime-eligible employees are called into work during previously scheduled time off, they would receive double time pay and have their PTO restored.

EXPENSES & EQUIPMENT: Last month, BuzzFeed rolled out its return to office plan, extending the remote/flexible work option into the future and reducing the pandemic-era WFH stipend from $125/month to $75/month. We accepted management’s offer of a $75 stipend for all employees in cities with BuzzFeed offices. But for workers who work and live in cities where there is no longer — or never was — an office, we proposed that the company provide them with an additional $50/month. We also accepted management’s offer of a $300 WFH set-up bonus for new employees.

BENEFITS & LEAVES: We are largely in agreement with the company on most pieces of this proposal — in theory. But we’re still a ways apart on some concrete benefits, including paid leaves and healthcare costs. In our latest counter, we proposed 7% and 6% yearly caps on healthcare premium and deductible costs, respectively. We also held our 401(k) proposal, which is a huge priority for our members: 100% matching up to 6% of the employee’s contribution. The company’s outside counsel said this was “problematic” — despite admitting that the company’s 401(k) matching is far lower than that of almost any other newsroom in the country — because it isn’t where BuzzFeed wants to invest. If it’s problematic, it’s our problematic fave.

On continuing education, which is now part of our larger benefits package, we accepted management’s theoretical offer of tuition reimbursement if they offer it to everyone else. We have also proposed that the company should pay for professional development courses.

WAGES: We held on our proposed salary floor of $70,000 but made a movement in management’s direction on the minimum salaries for higher level jobs. We also held on our previous floor of a 5% guaranteed wage increase for employees who make less than $80K and made some movement on the annual raises for those with higher salaries.

We had previously proposed either an increase to the new minimums or a 1% salary increase for all employees upon ratification of our contract, but in our latest counter we instead offered a one-time ratification bonus equal to 3% of our post-ratification salary up to $3,000.

SUCCESSORSHIP: We have proposed that in the event BuzzFeed News is sold our contract would remain in place. But management has so far refused to give us this reasonable — and very important (!) — assurance and instead insist that they will only do what the law requires, which is basically nothing except telling the new owner that the CBA exists.

There isn’t much middle ground between our two perspectives here. And while we have no idea what the future holds on this issue, ensuring that a theoretical new owner honors the employee protections and benefits we have spent so long fighting for is absolutely critical.