Candidate for Council, Online Media Sector
I’m Sie Morley, a Community Editor at SB Nation and LMC co-chair for Vox Media Union, hoping to serve for the first time on WGAE Council.
Shortly after joining Vox Media in 2020, I was asked to join the Labor Management Committee, to fight for our colleagues while the pandemic resulted in cuts across the industry. I continued to serve on the LMC until we began bargaining our second contract in 2022, when I joined the Bargaining Committee. After we secured our contract last summer, I was selected to co-chair the LMC. During this time, I have also represented Vox Media Union in the Industry-Wide Organizing Committee, sharing our experiences as one of the larger units in the Online Media sector.
I’m most proud of the industry-changing wins in Vox Media’s second contract. We’ve seen a shift in our workplaces that relies less on in-office work, making protecting the rights of remote workers a huge priority for me. We earned protections that include maintaining remote status for workers who are hired in as such, as well as provisions for maintaining a safe work environment, even when that environment is your own home.
In Vox Media’s last contract negotiations, we came very close to a strike. This is the reality many shops will be facing in the future, as digital media companies continue to ask their workers to do more with less. That experience does not come without fear, but as a leader who has been in that position, I will do everything to make our workers feel supported and secure in their futures.
Our industry is constantly changing, and our contract language is so crucial in how we are able to address those changes. I’m passionate about using each contract as a way to set new standards across the industry. If elected, I plan to dig through every contract for the best possible language, with the goal of creating a list of protections that every shop that chooses to organize through WGAE can point to as an industry standard.
At Vox, we often say that we move as a unit, but the current MBA strike shows that we don’t just have the power to move as a unit – we have the power to move as an industry. I have a vision of what the industry can look like when we do, and that vision includes new organizing, to bring more talent into the WGAE fold. It includes support across sectors, recognizing that we have far more in common than we do differences and that many people work across sectors. It includes WGAE being the place where Online Media talent is protected, respected, and thriving.
It would be my immense pleasure and honor to represent Online Media members on the WGAE Council. I am grateful to be endorsed by candidate Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, Melissa Hirsch, Makena Kelly, candidate David Lumb, Amy McCarthy, Joshua Rivera, Seth Rosenthal, Jaya Saxena and candidate Samantha Smylie.
