Employee rights | Buzzfeed staff form union after 'mismanaged' layoffs and pay disparities

Buzzfeed’s editorial staff have formed a union following a brutal round of layoffs that saw 15% of employees lose their job.

Buzzfeed News reports that the union was created to tackle what organisers described as "unfair pay disparities, mismanaged pivots and layoffs, weak benefits, skyrocketing health insurance costs, diversity, and more."

More than 200 employees were cut from the media company earlier this year, despite the firm generating more than £232.71million ($300million) in revenue in 2018 - a jump of more than 15% from 2017. The New York Times explained that, even with the large increase in revenue, the company is still not turning a profit.

Dominic Holden, a Politics Reporter for BuzzFeed News and a member of the organising committee, explained that employees were planning to unionise before the latest round of layoffs. However, he said, the recent cuts "made it abundantly clear that we need a contract that protects workers during periods of intense transition.”