(Washington) Hundreds of Washington Post employees are on strike Thursday to make themselves heard by the management of the prestigious American daily, after a year and a half of difficult negotiations on a company agreement.
Chanting “we want decent wages”, brandishing signs “show us the dollars”, dozens of people, employees and supporters, held a picket in front of the newspaper’s headquarters, in the city center of the American capital .
The Washington Post Guild union calls on the public not to read the newspaper this Thursday and denounces management’s lack of willingness to “negotiate in good faith” and as it raises the specter of new layoffs.
The 24-hour work stoppage comes after 18 months of discussions on a new agreement including wage demands and teleworking.
“We are not asking for charity,” Katie Mettler, a journalist and one of the union leaders, explained to AFP on site. “We cannot become profitable again if our employees leave, because this institution does not increase our salaries to cope with inflation,” she regretted.
The management of the daily owned by billionaire and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos “has — repeatedly and illegally — interrupted negotiations on key issues, including salaries, support for employee mental health, and voluntary departures” , believes the union.
In October, a few months after the elimination of its Sunday magazine, “WaPo” announced staff cuts with plans for voluntary departures for 240 people, out of a total workforce of 2,500 employees.
According to the newspaper’s interim boss, Patty Stonesifer, previous management had shown “excessive optimism” about the situation and future of the company.
The paper’s goal “remains the same as it was at the start of negotiations: to find an agreement with the union that meets both the needs of employees and the business,” management said in a statement.
Public radio NPR announced in March that it was reducing its staff by 10% and the elimination of four podcasts.
And strikes took place within the New York Times and the largest newspaper network in the country, Gannett, which publishes USA Today and more than a hundred local newspapers.
The U.S. media industry saw more than 17,500 job losses in the first half of 2023 alone, according to a report from Challenger, Gray and Christmas, a human resources consulting firm.
And over the past two decades, more than 2,500 newspapers have closed their doors in the country.
