‘Washington Post’ journalists stage daylong strike under threat of job cuts

More than 750 Washington Post workers have agreed to walk off the job on Thursday to protest stalled contract negotiations. The company has warned of layoffs if too few staffers take voluntary buyouts. More than 750 journalists and business-side staffers at The Washington Post walked off the job for the day, saying they are angered by the company’s decision to embark on massive job cuts while contract negotiations have stalled. “We did not come to this decision to do this walkout lightly,” says Post reporter Marissa Lang, who covers housing and serves on the union’s bargaining team. “We all work at The Washington Post because we believe in its mission and we believe in what we do. And we care deeply about the work we do, the people, the communities, the stories we cover. “I think this indicates how seriously we all are taking this, how deeply felt a lot of these concerns are in the Washington Post newsroom and in the company at large,” she says. The strike Thursday is the most serious labor action at the paper in decades. It follows months of worker activism throughout the nation. While some of those have led to wins for labor, the media industry has suffered sharp layoffs this year. The newspaper’s acting CEO, Patty Stonesifer, announced plans in October to cut 240 jobs, about 10% of the workforce, through voluntary buyouts . She told staffers that previous management had been “overly optimistic” about the paper’s prospects for growth. Last week, Stonesifer warned in a memo first reported by Semafor that half of that number had accepted buyouts. If more people did not accept them by next week, involuntary layoffs would ensue on far less generous terms, she said. A Post spokesperson released this statement Wednesday: “We respect the rights […]

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