Vox Media Employees Announce Organizing Effort

Editorial and video staff at Vox Media informed management this morning that they will attempt to organize with the Writers Guild of America, East.

Vox Media, founded in 2005, runs a range of websites that cover news, technology, sports and culture.

The staffers who seek to unionize work for the company’s eight editorial brands: SB Nation, Vox.com, Curbed, Racked, Eater, The Verge, Recode and Polygon, according to Jason Gordon, the guild’s director of communications. Recode co-founder Walt Mossberg, now retired, was a labor reporter for the Wall Street Journal early in his career.

The unit would be composed of 350 to 400 people, the spokesperson said.

The writers laid out their motivations to organize in an open letter provided to POLITICO. The letter cited a desire for consistency around salary and titles at the company, as well as concerns about the future.

“Vox Media will eventually buy or sell properties, engage with investors and advertisers, and perhaps discipline or lay off employees,” the letter reads. “In any such case, we want to preserve our benefits, to ensure our fair share of capital, and to protect individuals and their work from forces outside their control.”