The union that represents journalists at Business Insider issued the following statement on Thursday:
We are devastated, for the fourth time in four years, to see Business Insider’s management push out 10 more of our talented coworkers during layoffs this morning.
As a union we are incredibly concerned about management’s willingness to repeatedly rely on layoffs to make up for poor strategic decisions made by Business Insider’s leadership in conjunction with Axel Springer’s guidance. The talented coworkers the company laid off today are enterprising reporters whose work totally aligned with the company’s supposed focus on revelatory, award-winning reporting.
As a union we are in the middle of a contract negotiation in which we’ve brought forward reasonable articles that would protect our coworkers, including a layoff moratorium, something that these layoffs prove is sorely needed. Our coworkers need to feel that they will be supported in doing their best work at Business Insider, something that is not happening at the moment.
The company has also, as with past rounds of layoffs, not proactively engaged with members about accepting volunteers to help avoid layoffs. This is a thoughtless, cruel strategy: Our coworkers can – and have – changed jobs and beats as the company’s priorities have changed.
We expect management, who so far have failed to bring anything to the negotiating table, to do right by our valued coworkers that they are pushing out today by following our existing contract, as well as everyone left in the newsroom by bargaining in good faith over all the proposals we bring and have brought to the table.
As we’ve had to say in past statements when management has opted for layoffs rather than collaboration and strategy, there is no Business Insider – or Axel Springer, for that matter – without us. Each of the four times now, we’ve faced layoffs as a union, we’ve come together and fought for voluntary buyouts and a better deal. We will continue that fight now.
