The leftist writers of the leftist online magazine, Slate, have voted to protest Slate for not being leftist enough.
The writers voted 52-1 to authorize a strike and are considering walking out of their jobs over several demands, including right-to-work policies, according to the Washington Examiner.
“Today we’re announcing the results of our strike authorization vote,” the union said on its official account, @SlateUnion. “Last week, 100 percent of our bargaining unit voted and 98 percent chose to authorize a strike if necessary. We’re proud of this overwhelming representation of solidarity.”
Before the vote, the employees also protested by not responding to their managers for hour-long periods on Slack, a workplace communication and collaboration hub, Bloomberg reported.
In a thread, the union explains that they’ve been in a bargaining contract for eight months.
“We’re excited by a lot of what we’ve achieved at the table,” they tweeted. “But we’re still dismayed by management’s position on certain key issues.”
The writers are reportedly unhappy with the pay, the lack of diversity, and the management’s support of “right-to-work” policies which allow workers to opt out of joining a union and contributing financial support.
The union called on Slate to consider a diverse mix of candidates for positions. In November, Slate Union tweeted it was “committed to enshrining policies that ensure we’ll collectively adhere to best practices when hiring,” adding, “This is critical given the lack of diversity in newsrooms, including our own.”
Slate employee, Jenny G. Zhang, tweeted that “management needs to take seriously” the requests for “diversity/inclusion” because “ya’ll already know slate is too f****** white.”
Of the right-to-work policies, Slate Union called them a “technique designed to degrade the legitimacy of our union.”
Jordan Weissmann, who writes about the economy, healthcare, and taxes for Slate, called the right-to-work policies “unacceptable,” in a tweet.
“We love Slate,” the union added in the thread. “We want make the strongest [sic], best Slate possible. But Slate is its workers—it’s the writers, editors, producers, and staffers who make the magazine.”
“We just feel that it’s a total and absolute betrayal of Slate’s most fundamental values,” said Slate writer Mark Joseph Stern, told Bloomberg.
According to Bloomberg, a group of law professors and legal experts who freelance for Slate released a statement urging Slate to rescind its right-to-work policies, calling them “anathema to the values that drew us to Slate in the first place.”
Slate Union also urged its Slate+ readers to send letters of support.
In January, Slate’s writers voted 47-5 to form a union represented by Writers’ Guild of America East, which said the Slate employees are fighting for a “reasonable” contract.
“The WGAE-represented employees at Slate have made two things clear to management: they want a reasonable contract that addresses their needs and respects their decision to unionize, and they’re willing to fight for it. The Writers Guild of America, East and its thousands of members stand with the Slate employees, and we know that solidarity works,” the group’s executive director, Lowell Peterson, said.
In recent years, several leftist media companies have reportedly unionized, including HuffPost, Vice Media, the Guardian, the Daily Beast, and the New Yorker.