Condé Nast Union Reaches Tentative Contract Agreement Hours Ahead of Met Gala
The Condé Nast Union and management have finally come to their first tentative contract agreement, after months of bitter negotiations – and just hours ahead of Monday’s Met Gala.
Management announced the tentative agreement on Monday morning in a memo to staff, obtained by TheWrap, which said, “On behalf of the management bargaining committee and leaders throughout the business, we are pleased to come to tentatively agreed terms on a contract with the union.”
“We are happy to have a contract that reflects and supports our core values — our content and journalism,” Management continued. “Our commitment to diversity and professional development; our industry-leading hiring practices and our competitive wages and benefits.”
According to the Union, bargaining with management was a “marathon” with negotiations finally wrapping up at 3 a.m. ET.
“We made a commitment to do whatever it takes to get our contract,” social media manager and a member of the Condé Union bargaining team Mark Alan Burger said in a statement. “Our pledge to take any action necessary to get our contract, including walking off the job ahead of the Met Gala, and all the actions we took this week, pushed the company to really negotiate. We made every effort this week to meet with them and get this contract completed and we’re thrilled to say we did it.”
“What this contract win clearly illustrates is that when we as union workers show our steadfast commitment to standing with one another and refusing to back down, we win,” NY Guild’s senior representative, chief negotiator, and secretary/treasurer, Anthony Napoli, said in a statement.
“I’m in awe of every single unit member who dedicated their time to informing their employee of our mission to build a better workplace, and especially my comrades on the bargaining committee who fought for every last improvement in our contract,” Burger told TheWrap. “It is a historic moment for Condé Nast.
This marks the first contract agreement for the Condé Nast Union, who will vote to ratify the tentative deal in the coming week. The Condé Nast Union represents employees at brands like Allure, Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit, Condé Nast Traveler, Epicurious, Glamour, GQ, Self, Teen Vogue, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Them, and Condé Nast Entertainment.
The contract agreement includes $3.6 million in total wage increases, 14 weeks of parental of fully paid parental leave, “just cause” protections for disciplining staffers, guaranteed comps time after 40 hours of work, expanded paid bereavement policy, hybrid work protections, and more.
The Guild was also able to successfully negotiate the terms of layoffs that management proposed in November and following.
Terms of the layoff agreement include eight weeks of severance, continued employment throughout the ratification of the union contract, and more.
A layoff moratorium has also been negotiated through July 31, 2024.
In November, CEO Roger Lynch announced that Condé Nast would be cutting around 5 percent of its workforce, which would impact around 270 employees. Over 400 unionized Condé Nast employees staged a walkout in January in response. Then in March, according to the union, management added five more staffers to their layoff list, just two weeks after Lynch said he had no further plans for job cuts in an interview with Axios.
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