Journalists and production staff at Vice UK have announced their intention to unionise, as staff at digital media companies increasingly seek collective bargaining rights in the face of redundancies across the industry.
An earlier attempt by Vice UK staff to unionise in 2016 was headed off by management, who agreed instead to set up an employee forum at a time when the company was still receiving investment, hiring staff, and growing fast.
Since then, Vice UK has been hit with multiple rounds of redundancies, while the global business has laid off 10% of its employees amid concerns over the future of its business model, which is increasingly focused on television production and advertising partnerships.
The National Union of Journalists’ chapel claims to have majority support in Vice UK’s editorial, production, and post-production units and said it hoped management would choose to voluntarily recognise them through the NUJ.
“Many of us were drawn to work at Vice because of the company’s outspoken and longstanding commitment to innovative journalism, truth-telling and social justice. Vice is a company that prides itself on being youth-focused, and supporting the issues facing many marginalised groups today,” they said in a statement.
“We are determined to uphold the progressive values that Vice embodies, and believe everything that we stand for as a union is in line with these commitments.”
Vice staff in the US and Canada have already unionised and Vice UK staff have discussed lessons learned from BuzzFeed UK, where employees last year voted against unionisation following a lengthy recognition battle.
The union chapel said it would focus on increasing pay transparency, improving the redundancy process, ensuring freelance journalists are treated fairly, and campaigning for greater diversity and representation among Vice UK staff.
“We wish to reiterate that we view a Vice UK NUJ chapel as a positive step forward in the relationship between Vice UK workers and managers. We are all proud to work at Vice UK, and hope this will be the beginning of a long, positive, and industrious working relationship,” it said.
A Vice UK spokesman suggested it would not stand in the way of unionisation. He said: “Vice has had positive experiences of working with unions in the US and Canada and has indicated that we are open to engaging with the NUJ to try to establish a constructive relationship in the UK.
“We regret that the NUJ did not give us the opportunity to agree a joint statement indicating our commitment to working at Acas but we look forward to positive discussions with it at the earliest possible opportunity.”
