Condé Nast Fires Four Employees For Confronting HR Exec Outside His Office

Four staffers who recorded themselves confronting the head of Human Resources at Condé Nast over recent layoffs at Teen Vogue have been fired.

The clips were filmed on Wednesday outside HR exec Stan Duncan’s office at One World Trade Center in New York City. In the awkward clip, a crowd of employees stand outside Duncan’s office and badger him about the layoffs, prompting him to repeatedly tell them to “go back to the workplace.”

Four of those employees were later fired for “extreme misconduct,” per Deadline.

Those individuals included Jasper Lo from the New Yorker, Jake Lahut from Wired, Alma Avalle from Bon Appétit, and Ben Dewey from Condé Nast Entertainment.

In the video, Duncan can be heard telling employees to refrain from “congregating” outside his office.

“What counts as congregating?” Lahut said. “What’s your definition of congregating?”

“We’d appreciate if you would go back to the workplace, to your workplace assignments,” Duncan responded.

“Is there a place that you’d be able to speak to us?” Avalle said to Duncan. “Do you think we’re not worth speaking to, Stan?”

“Those are your words, not mine,” Duncan said.

“But they might be your beliefs!” Avalle replied.

“They’re not my beliefs,” Duncan can be heard saying.

“Well, we have some quick questions. If you answered them, we’d be happy to go back to our desks,” Avalle tried again.

“Are you running away from us?” Avalle said incredulously as Duncan started leading the group away from his office.

“We’re concerned about our colleagues,” a person off-camera said.

 “We’d like you to answer questions,” Avalle said. “We’d love to move forward.”

The most brutally awkward thing you’ll see today: Condé Nast staffers confront head of HR Stan Duncan over layoffs outside his 34th-floor office.

Four of the employees featured in this exclusive video from the confrontation were then fired for “extreme misconduct.”

The whole… pic.twitter.com/Ze6Vmyz0iI

— TheWrap (@TheWrap) November 6, 2025

In a statement, Condé Nast said that “extreme misconduct is unacceptable in any professional setting. This includes aggressive, disruptive and threatening behavior of any kind.”

“We remain committed to working constructively with the union and all of our employees.”

The media giant also said they have filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board against the News Guild of New York “for their repeated and egregious disregard of our collective bargaining agreement.”

Meanwhile, the guild took the side of the fired employees, writing, “These terminations are a flagrant breach of the Just Cause terms of our contract and an unprecedented violation of their federally protected rights as union members to participate in collective action.”

Avalle, a transgender-identifying employee who was one of those participating in the incident, wrote about it on X.

“I love my job, I love my coworkers, and I love my union. I’m devastated the company made this move. There are so few trans women in media at all — particularly ones who aren’t confined to ‘Queer Media’ — and I was incredibly proud of what my position at Bon Appétit meant at large,” the post said.

“More important to me than my identity, I am also the Vice President of the NewsGuild of New York, and targeting me with a blatantly retaliatory termination like this feels like an egregious shot against our union and against media workers as a whole.”