Nearly two years after voting to form a union, media workers at WHYY have gotten their first contract.
The contract, ratified overwhelmingly on Tuesday, units a salary flooring and grants six weeks of paid parental leave to the roughly 75 workers lined by the settlement. About half the unit will get an instantaneous 5% elevate and everybody will get a elevate every year of the three-year contract.
Wages and parental leave benefits had been main points for the workers, who mentioned they had been pushed to arrange as a result of they couldn’t see a future for themselves at WHYY in any other case.
“We’re proud to ensure some mobility for our colleagues and future workers alike, guaranteeing that WHYY can turn out to be a sustainable place to construct a profession,” Nina Feldman, a WHYY reporter and union store steward, mentioned in a assertion.
“The contract is in my judgment one which isn’t solely truthful and equitable, however respectful of the service of any well-performing WHYY worker,” mentioned Bill Marrazzo, CEO and president of the station.
The negotiation was a lengthy, antagonistic, and typically public course of, stalled by the pandemic and punctuated with practically two dozen bargaining unit members leaving the public-media station. The course of took about 10 months longer than the average time it takes for private-sector workers to get to a first contract.
In June, administration instructed workers they may not afford the union’s requests for a salary flooring, the union mentioned on Twitter. Management’s stance infuriated many workers, given the six-figure salaries of WHYY’s prime officers, together with Marrazzo, who makes $740,000 yearly. The unit’s lowest-paid full time worker earns $40,000, the union mentioned.
“Our CEO and 6 VPs at WHYY earn a mixed $2 million+,” the union tweeted. “That alone would cowl practically half the mixed salaries of our complete 80-member union.”
WHYY voted to unionize with SAG-AFTRA, which represents workers at NPR associates throughout the nation, in October 2019. The vote was 70-1.
https://www.inquirer.com/information/whyy-union-contract-raises-journalists-20210915.html
