It has been nearly two years since more than 200 staffers at Bustle Digital Group successfully unionized with Writers Guild of America East, but union members still don’t have a contract with the company.
BDG, whose portfolio that includes Bustle, Mic, Inverse and Elite Daily, announced that it would voluntarily recognize BDG Union and enter bargaining talks in November 2020. Insiders with knowledge of the contract talks told TheWrap that negotiations immediately hit a snag because of the nature of BDG’s sites, whose editorial staff is filled with part-time and hourly writers.
While the WGAE’s team of 30 committee members had been designed to reflect the part-time-heavy nature of these sites as well as the diversity of the new bargaining unit, BDG management initially said that negotiation meetings could not last longer than an hour if part-timers were involved, a provision that the union contested.