BuzzFeed Staffers ‘Stood Up’ by Management at Union Meeting

Management at BuzzFeed is clearly not feeling warmly about its editorial staff unionizing. Union leaders for the digital outlet’s news division wrote in a tweet that management didn’t show up on time to an official meeting at the New York offices of NewsGuild to discuss recognition of the group. And a few minutes after the scheduled start time, the group was informed by human resources that management simply was not going to show up. “This meeting was a crucial opportunity to make progress in agreeing on a bargaining unit, after more than seven weeks of frustratingly slow communication with BuzzFeed,” union leaders wrote. “Instead, they abandoned today’s negotiations. BuzzFeed management is engaging in clear union busting.” A representative of BuzzFeed could not be immediately reached for comment. BuzzFeed staff went public with their union effort in early February. While it was only a few weeks after the company laid off about 200 staffers (15 percent of its staff), organizers claimed to have been meeting “for years.” Nevertheless, the group said in its letter that it had formed to address “unfair pay disparities, mismanaged pivots and layoffs, weak benefits, skyrocketing health insurance costs, diversity and more.” Before today’s scheduled meeting, the union said it had “repeatedly”

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