Wirecutter raises $42,000 for workers who went on strike

Supporters of Wirecutter, the product-recommendation site whose staffers went on strike for five days, have raised over $42,000 to help compensate workers for missed overtime pay, reports Allison Prang of The Wall Street Journal.

Prang writes, “Unionized staffers went on strike from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday due to a contract stalemate with the site’s owner, the New York Times Co. The proceeds from the fundraiser, which concluded Monday night, are earmarked toward paying union members the overtime pay they would have accrued during the strike.

“Money raised through the fundraising website GoFundMe exceeded the union’s earlier goals of $10,000 and $25,000. The fund got more than 900 donations, some for as little as $10.

“‘We were pleasantly surprised,” said Nick Guy, Wirecutter union chairman and a senior staff writer for the website. He said the extra money raised will go toward supporting other worker strikes outside of Wirecutter.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.