Over 750 woke staffers of the far-left Washington Submit have initiated a 24-hour walkout, marking the most important protest on the newspaper in virtually 50 years.
The strike is notably one of many largest labor actions in Washington D.C.’s latest historical past, according to Axios. Staffers, also called “Posties,” are calling on the general public to face in solidarity with them by boycotting the Submit’s content material during the strike.
This walkout is the height of a tension-building 18 months of contract negotiations between the Submit’s administration and its workers. Tensions have been heightened final week amidst the excitement of potential layoffs ought to the corporate not meet its goal buyout numbers.
The paper, dealing with a steep $100 million deficit for the yr, has introduced plans to chop about 240 jobs, notably focusing on the native information division. But, regardless of these dire circumstances, solely half of the slated positions have been vacated via voluntary departures.
The union representing the hanging workers, the Washington Submit Guild, accuses the administration of failing to “discount in good religion.” Their calls for are centered on attaining equal pay, securing raises to maintain tempo with the inflation charge, and sustaining versatile distant work insurance policies.
The union launched the next statement:
Washington Submit workers have been negotiating with administration for 18 months. We nonetheless lack a contract that retains tempo with record-level inflation and ensures employees a dwelling wage. In the meantime, due to our earlier writer’s mismanagement, the corporate has tried to stability its books by shedding practically 40 folks within the final yr. Then they supplied “voluntary” buyouts to a different 240 staffers this fall. Now The Submit has threatened that in the event that they don’t get sufficient folks to go away, extra layoffs might be subsequent.
Which means fewer Submit workers making the vital journalism that retains our communities knowledgeable and holds our public officers accountable. Democracy Dies in Darkness, proper?
Again and again, we’ve advised the corporate’s leaders that we’re price extra. They’ve refused to hear. They’ve refused to discount in good religion. They’ve damaged the regulation repeatedly.
So we’ve advised firm leaders that on Dec. 7, we’re hanging for twenty-four hours, as a result of we all know there is no such thing as a Washington Submit with out us.
A reporter for the WaPo wrote, “I’m strolling off the job with a whole bunch of my WaPo colleagues as a result of the corporate is breaking the regulation and bargaining in unhealthy religion. Respect our picket line throughout our 24-hour strike by avoiding WaPo journalism immediately, ship a letter to our bosses right here:”
I’m strolling off the job with a whole bunch of my WaPo colleagues as a result of the corporate is breaking the regulation and bargaining in unhealthy religion. Respect our picket line throughout our 24-hour strike by avoiding WaPo journalism immediately, ship a letter to our bosses right here: https://t.co/keUV5LDNNc
— Will Sommer (@willsommer) December 7, 2023
WATCH:
Washington Submit employees on strike pic.twitter.com/ZWHn88ivUE
— Michael Patrick Key (@MichaelKeyWB) December 7, 2023