AFL-CIO: Workers at Crooked Media Stage Walkout Over Union-Busting

Top Cut:

Dozens of workers at Crooked Media, the media company that produces popular political podcast “Pod Save America,” participated in a one-day walkout on Monday to pressure the company to reach a fair contract.

Why It Matters:

Represented by Crooked Media Workers Union, an affiliate of Writers Guild of America East (WGAE), staff have been engaged in negotiations with management for more than a year. In a show of cohesive solidarity, more than 95% of the union’s 61-member bargaining unit signed the pledge to walk out and distribute leaflets outside Crooked Media’s office in Los Angeles. Workers are asking for fair and competitive salary minimums, annual cost-of-living adjustments, safeguards against layoffs, and other company policies that reflect the company’s nominally progressive values. Last week, WGAE filed an unfair labor practice charge against the company for unilaterally excluding multiple staff members from the bargaining unit in an attempt to undermine the union’s ability to uphold workers’ collective bargaining rights.

“Crooked Media has failed to live up to its values with its anti-union negotiating tactics,” WGAE President Lisa Takeuchi Cullen said. “This work stoppage is the direct result of leadership’s refusal to agree to fair terms with their workers after a year of bargaining. It is time for Crooked Media’s leadership to come to the negotiating table ready to make a deal that allows staff to turn their full attention back to the critical elections happening in less than a hundred days.”

Union Members at Sesame Workshop Ratify New Contract

From the AFL-CIO:

Top Cut:

On Friday, members of Writers Guild of America East (WGAE) and Writers Guild of America West (WGAW) at Sesame Workshop overwhelmingly ratified a new five-year collective bargaining agreement.

Why It Matters:
The 35-member bargaining unit at Sesame Workshop secured a groundbreaking expansion of the Writers Guild of America’s (WGA) jurisdiction over programs made for platforms such as streaming and social media, minimum rates increases, protections against artificial intelligence, better paid parental leave benefits, increased minimum script fees and huge improvements to new media residuals.

“Congratulations to our Sesame Workshop writers, who won groundbreaking protections that will allow them to continue creating children’s media,” said WGAE President Lisa Takeuchi Cullen. “Make no mistake—these historic gains mark an important step in organizing animation. Writing for children’s media and animation isn’t easier than other forms of screenwriting, and those workers deserve the same protections.”