WGA East Members at MSNBC Mark Two Years of Negotiating First Contract

NEW YORK, NY (November 13, 2023) – Today marks two years since Writers Guild of America East members at MSNBC (MSNBC Union) began negotiations on their first collective bargaining agreement. 

The Union and management at MSNBC are slated to resume negotiations on Wednesday, November 15th, with the MSNBC Union still fighting for a contract that includes livable wages and fair pay for performing extra work.

In the last week, more than 5,000 letters have been sent by union members to MSNBC President Rashida Jones and NBCUniversal News Group Chairman Cesar Conde demanding a fair contract now. The letter writing campaign has been supported by the AFL-CIO and the New York City Central Labor Council. 

The MSNBC Union is asking MSNBC management to codify meaningful work-from-home flexibility for its workers. Over the last three and a half years, the staff at MSNBC have proven that their jobs can be done remotely without sacrificing the quality of the content they produce.

In addition, short-staffing at MSNBC means that workers are regularly assigned the work of higher paid employees without additional compensation. And workers are regularly expected to work long hours and be available on standby outside work hours, without any additional compensation. 

“For two years the Guild has made it clear to MSNBC that the status quo is not acceptable to the MSNBC employees who organized with our union.  For two years we have patiently presented the facts about how difficult it is to balance work and life at MSNBC, how important it is for the company to address legitimate workplace concerns.  Patience runs out” said Lowell Peterson, Executive Director of the Writers Guild of America East.

The MSNBC Bargaining Committee said, “After two years of presenting real life examples of our unit’s most pressing issues, the company has fallen short of addressing them in a meaningful way. We value our jobs and our work–it’s time for management to do the same.”

ABOUT THE WRITERS GUILD OF AMERICA EAST
The Writers Guild of America East, AFL-CIO (WGAE) is a labor union representing writers in film, television, broadcast and streaming news, podcasts, and online media. The Guild negotiates and administers contracts that protect the creative and economic rights of its members; conducts programs, seminars and events on issues of interest to writers; and presents writers’ views to various bodies of government. For more information on the Writers Guild of America, East, visit wgaeast.org. 

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