Bloomberg Industry union taking steps to resist return to office

Jason Albright, the unit chair of the union representing journalists at Bloomberg Industry Group, sent out the following:

Dear Colleagues,

As the Guild continues the fight against a premature return to the office in July, it’s clear that INDG is not taking the safety or equity issues involved seriously enough.

Sadly, it looks like the company prefers to steamroll the interests of employees, with the intention of forcing us all back into a workplace on July 26 that looks to the past rather than the future.

INDG needs to recognize the value of remote/hybrid work rather than pretend that the pandemic and attendant society-wide transformation never happened.

We need your help to raise visibility and ramp up pressure on management to hear the voices and needs of INDG’s workers.

Our strength in upcoming labor-management meetings will depend on the  company seeing our collective desire for things to change. Fully 200 of you have already signed the petition we sent to Josh, which was a great first step. Now we need to make employees’ concerns visible throughout the organization so that managers and colleagues at all levels see our determination.

To that end, we are organizing several specific actions you can participate in starting today. Your support is critical as the July 26 RTO date barrels toward us.

 WEAR RED – Wear red (the News Guild’s color) as often as possible during video conference meetings with managers until July 26 to signify our solidarity in the fight against a mandatory RTO.

 TEAMS VIRTUAL BACKGROUND – Alternatively or concurrently, use the Guild’s custom Teams background whenever doing a video conference to raise visibility around the fight against a mandatory RTO. You can find two backgrounds to choose from attached below, or here and here. Instructions for using a background within Teams are:

–          From your channel or chat, click the camera icon to start a new meeting.

–          After the new window opens, click on “Meet Now” to launch the meeting.

–          Once the meeting has started, click on “Show Background Effects.”

–          A window will open on the right side of the screen. Click on “Add New” on the top right.

–          Upload your file, then scroll down to find the image. Select the image, then click “Apply.”

Once it is set up, the background should persist as your default background until you change it. Note: because Teams “mirrors” your own view back to see yourself in a meeting, it’ll look like the text is backwards – but don’t fear, it looks the right way to everyone else. Also, it’s ok if the aspect ratio in some meetings means the full text can’t always be seen; managers and co-workers will know what that background signifies regardless.

SIGNATURE LINE – Change your internal signature to add the Guild logo and a line that lets everyone know we take these issues seriously and want them addressed.

You can copy and paste the example below:

Say NO to Mandatory RTO.

The one-size-fits-all policy INDG wants to prematurely implement in July puts my colleagues at risk.

I hope the company will take a forward-looking approach and recognize the inclusivity, equity, and employee health value of remote/hybrid work.

LUNCH BREAK DEMONSTRATION – All employees should take a 30-minute lunch break each work day, during which we set an out-of-office message:

“I’m logging off with my colleagues to take my lunch break in protest of management’s plan to make returning to the office mandatory. I hope INDG will reflect on the value of all its employees by reopening bargaining around permanent flexibility for remote work.”

We are continuing to call on the company to hear the voices of its employees. If you have more ideas or would like to get more involved, please reach out to me (jason.d.albright@gmail.com), Andrew Kreighbaum (andkreigh@gmail.com), or Fatima Hussein (fatimashussein@gmail.com).

In solidarity,

Jason Albright
Unit Chair