Forbes editorial staffers walk off the job the same day as release of the company's '30 Under 30' list
The Forbes Union, which represents the magazine's editorial staffers, walked off the job Tuesday on a crucial day for the company.
The union issued a warning to management, scheduling its walkout on the same day as the release of Forbes' well-known "30 Under 30" list, which includes 20 lists of 30 influential people under 30 years old who are recognized for their achievements in various industries.
Members of the union, who are fighting for fair wages and reductions in force and severance protections, told Fox News Digital that management has been stalling at the bargaining table for nearly three years.
"CEO Mike Federle said at a recent town hall that management is eager to get a contract but that it seems like a very long way off. That’s because of his actions and that of management," Andrea Murphy, unit chair and statistics editor for Forbes, said. "We have been and will continue to be ready to get this contract done, including pay that recognizes the value we bring to Forbes."
For example, management is proposing 1% in annual raises, a wage floor of $60,000, a 5% minimum raise for promotions and no overtime or additional pay for weekends. The union, in contrast, wants 8% annual raises, a wage floor of $75,000, union protection for all who are eligible, a 15% minimum raise for promotions and additional pay for weekends and overtime.
"Right now, Forbes is proposing a minimum salary of $60,000 for employees, people who start out at Forbes," Murphy said. "That is just not a fair salary for the amount of work that people are doing."
The Forbes Union is also demanding that the company stop "illegally and unilaterally" pulling people out of the bargaining unit.
A Forbes Union spokesperson told Fox News Digital that management has incorrectly claimed that some of the Forbes Union members are "management" and, as a result, should not be part of the union. The union said the tactic is a common anti-union practice, which it is fighting through its unfair labor practice charge on management’s misclassification of members, in an attempt to shrink the Forbes Union.
Murphy said she isn't sure why management has been dragging its feet for as long as it has, but she suspects it is a tactic used by companies to diminish the enthusiasm for a union by "slow walking" the contract fight.
"Of course, they don't tell us that when we're sitting at the bargaining table," she added. "They claim they've been doing this in good faith all along."
Notably, Forbes has been on the edge of a sale for years. Most recently, Koch Inc.'s private equity arm was in talks to buy Forbes in partnership with another individual investor, sources told Axios in September. Before that, the company was considering a blank check merger in 2021.
Hank Tucker, who is a staff writer at Forbes and serves as the vice chair of the union, told Fox News Digital that he suspects the chance of a sale might affect management's decision to slow walk a potential contract.
"We're also walking out not just for wages, but for good severance protections, good layoff protections, because I think everyone sees examples of when a new owner buys a company and makes some layoffs pretty soon after taking control," he said. "We want protections to combat that, and it seems like Forbes is trying to hold us off maybe until a new owner comes in and can make those decisions for themselves on where to prioritize in the contract on their end."
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But, Murphy stressed, that other media unions haven't had to wait as long as they have for a first contract.
"It's just disappointing when you have people in management like our editor-in-chief Randall Lane saying things like, 'I want us to have the best contract in all the media' and then you have the company showing up, proposing 1% raises and a salary floor of $60,000," she said. "That's not the best contract in media."
Murphy stressed the timing of the walkout, which coincides with the launch of the company's "30 Under 30" list to highlight the work it takes to put out the lists.
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"The Under 30 list is a really high profile list for Forbes. It gets us a lot of attention," she said. "But it does take the work of basically every single team in the newsroom, months and months of work to put a list like this together."
"The scope is intense," she added. "There's not really one part of the newsroom that's not involved in this, and so we felt like walking out on this day kind of highlights how much work it takes to do this level of journalism day in and day out. We want to basically use some of the attention and spotlight that this list gets every year and shine a little bit of it on our contract fight."
The Forbes Union falls under the umbrella of the NewsGuild of New York, which represents nearly 6,000 media professionals and other employees at New York area news organizations, including The New York Times, The New Yorker and Thomson Reuters, among others.
"Forbes’ success with ‘30 Under 30" is a direct result of our members’ hard work," Susan DeCarava, president of The NewsGuild of NY, said. "It’s long past time for management to recognize that fact with a fair contract."
Fox News Digital reached out to Forbes for comment.