Shop Paper #8: Management’s response to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

November 9, 2022

Hey Shop F,

We were back at the bargaining table with management on Wednesday, November 9, for a four-hour session (our eighth overall). As usual, Forbes was represented by SVP of Human Resources Ali Intres, Managing Editor Joyce Bautista Ferrari and outside counsel Patrick Collins. To kick things off, we shared our counter for grievance and arbitration, having only made one change to management's last proposal. We also accepted management's latest counter on access to personnel files and set it up as a tentative agreement—our first since we started bargaining in March (assuming management accepts it) and a crucial step in negotiating our contract.

Unfortunately, the session then took a frustrating and disappointing turn. Last month, we convened colleagues past and present to discuss DEI in the newsroom. They championed the value diverse journalists can bring to Forbes and its coverage, lamented Forbes’ lack of meaningful progress in the recruitment and retention of editorial staffers from underrepresented groups and even divulged personal experiences regarding racism and sexism in the newsroom. In response, Forbes management presented some slides defining diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB), discussed existing DEIB measures and then offered up a counter proposal that ignored and effectively rejected the union’s desire to institute specific DEI goals with regards to recruitment.

It’s important to be clear here: If we accepted management’s DEI proposals, we would have the worst diversity language accepted by management (and a union) at newsrooms across the NewsGuild of New York. That’s what management wants, but it can’t happen. With its sparse DEI language, Forbes management is insisting on remaining completely unaccountable to its words—and unabashedly going against its claims that it values making meaningful progress toward DEI (in addition to effectively endorsing existing practices that have led to high turnover among staffers from underrepresented groups). Our NewsGuild peers at Time, Sports Illustrated, Quartz, the Daily Beast and more have committed—in their contracts—to working toward ensuring at least 50% of the applicant pool making it beyond the initial interview stage be individuals from underrepresented groups, and Time has upped that threshold to 60% for senior-level decision makers. On Wednesday, management committed to no recruitment goals. It failed to live up to the DEI commitments made by Forbes’ peers and instead of welcoming the accountability, claimed efforts at other companies are "obviously not working," shifted part of the blame to editorial staffers for not recommending more diverse candidates and likened the union’s desire to institute goals to the “definition of insanity.” This was vastly disheartening, and it’s unacceptable.

Though a very frustrating 90-minute discussion overall, the back and forth did yield a couple of good things: Management asked to see examples of the DEI language instituted by fellow NewsGuild shops, which the committee will happily send over, and we hope doing so helps Forbes realize it shouldn’t fall behind its peers on DEI. Several times, management also acknowledged Forbes can and should do better, and expressed frustration with regards to the challenges in doing so. We understand it’s not easy, and that’s why we are pushing for a DEI committee tasked with taking on the hard work of helping management meet specific, measurable and ambitious goals. With this contract, Forbes has an opportunity to raise the standards for DEI in the journalism industry, and we hope management quickly changes its noncommittal tune on DEI. We will fight for it.

After a 20-minute caucus, we shifted discussion to other proposals: Our counter for information to the guild followed by our byline and hours & overtime proposals. Management expressed the byline proposal should include limitations and seemed understanding of byline issues around unit-member security. Management also asked questions around the hours & overtime proposal that helped foster a healthy discussion, but said “there's not going to be much appetite” with regards to paying overtime for salaried employees. Obviously, this is a sticking point for us, particularly since it is already common practice at NewsGuild peers including the New York Times, Law360 and more. However, in the spirit of moving things along, we simply asked for a response to the hours component of the proposal for now and plan to continue the discussion at our next session. We also agreed to send over examples of overtime language at our Newsguild sister shops.

We’ll be back at it in another bargaining session next Wednesday, November 16 at 10 a.m. ET. And as always, a quick shout out to unit rep Anthony Napoli, lawyer Thomas Lamadrid and the roughly 25 observers who attended our latest session. Your support is crucial in moving this along. We’ll see you at the next one.

Have any questions about the proposals? Reach out to anyone on the bargaining committee.

Want to get involved? We’re always looking for new stewards or BC members. Contact Unit Chair Andrea Murphy: andreadmurphy@gmail.com to learn more.

In solidarity, your bargaining committee:
Merrilee Barton
Alex Konrad
Andrea Murphy
Jon Ponciano