The “woke” writers of Vox want to unionize, but the apparently “woke for thee, but not for me” leaders of the company were not completely on board until recently.
On Thursday, Vox senior correspondent Dylan Matthews urged Twitter users not to click on links from the media outlet because they may be scheduled by “folks out of unit” (read: scabs) while employees walked out to protest their contract.
“I did not schedule this tweet of my article,” Matthews said of an @voxdotcom tweet. “Please do not click links from the tweets management is forcing folks out of unit to do while we walk out.”
Jim Geraghty, of National Review, jumped on Matthews’ tweet, jokingly telling others not to click on Vox links.
HEAR THAT, EVERYBODY! DO NOT CLICK ON VOX LINKS…
IN FACT, DON’T CLICK ON VOX LINKS INDEFINITELY UNTIL EVERYONE IS ABSOLUTELY SURE
In comments, Geraghty continued to mock Matthews and Vox, suggesting “the only way to help Vox unionized staff is to NOT click on their site.”
“I will not click on links to Vox for as long as it takes until management gives them everything they could ever want and more,” Geraghty added.
What Vox employees wanted, according a tweet from their official union account, was, in part:
– competitive wage scales
– strong guaranteed raises
– better severance
– subcontracting work
It is unclear what “strong, guaranteed raises” actually meant.
Employees refused to work on Thursday until their demands were met. It appears many of their demands were met, according to a follow-up tweet on Friday.
Things the @vox_union has:
– a contract
-guaranteed raises
– salary minimums
-strong severance
– a lot of good friends
– as of now: beers
Vox employees had been working to unionize for a year, and four months ago, the company responded by seemingly shifting its hiring away from full-time employees to contractors and freelancers. A report from Thinknum showed that hiring at Vox was increasing, but the increase came from non-employee hires.
Anna Merriman, an editor at Vox affiliate Curbed Philly, tweeted just how important Vox employees think their union efforts were.
“Halfway through an hour-long union meeting yesterday, it hit me: this was not just a fight for workers’ rights/fair pay at Vox, but a fight for journalism across the board,” she tweeted. “If we can set a standard for journalists, if we can stand up and say we will not buckle under pressure and if we can show management across the board that we’re ready to fight for the pay and benefits that we deserve, this profession may just live on after all.”