After layoffs and an AI scandal, CNET's staff is unionizing

CNET, the venerable tech site which began publication nearly 30 years ago, has become the latest digital media company whose staff have chosen to band together and demand more. The CNET Media Worker's Union (CMWU) today sent a letter to Red Ventures, the private equity concern which purchased CNET in 2020, seeking recognition of a bargaining unit of nearly 100 workers including editors, writers, and video producers. According to CMWU, a supermajority of those in the unit signed union authorization cards.Like the overwhelming majority of other organized digital publications, the workers who make up CMWU are responding in large part to an increasingly hostile financial climate in the industry. CNET has not been spared the same tumult that has led to the shuttering of Buzzfeed News and VICE's decision to file for bankruptcy: the company went through three brutal rounds of layoffs over recent months, the most recent of which stripped approximately a dozen staffers from the masthead. "We lost a lot of really great reporters," Laura Michelle Davis, an editor with CNET and organizing committee member, told Engadget.According to Davis, that sense of uncertainty led to a number of voluntary departures, but also to the surviving staff choosing to organize. Despite those cuts, according to the union's statement sent to management today, staff have continue to be "subjected to ongoing restructuring, cost-cutting austerity measures, shifting job roles and promotion freezes." CMWU has... Continue reading at 'Engadget'

[ Engadget | 2023-05-16 16:13:18 UTC ]
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Weldon seeks to reassure PRH staff on redundancy terms

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[ The Bookseller | 2016-12-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Penguin Random House hold 'positive' meeting to resolve union row

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[ The Guardian | 2016-12-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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S&S's Reidy tells staff to 'resist censorship' after 'tumultuous' 2016

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[ The Bookseller | 2016-12-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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PRH: Weldon and unions battle it out

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[ The Bookseller | 2016-12-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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More than 140 authors urge Penguin Random House to undo break with unions

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[ The Guardian | 2016-12-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Staff Pick: 'The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down' by Haemin Sunim

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-11-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-11-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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'Experts' caution over student and staff visas

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[ The Bookseller | 2016-10-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Google swallows 11,000 novels to improve AI's conversation

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[ The Guardian | 2016-09-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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NACS Cuts Staff by 17%

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