G/O Media (ownes by Great Hill Herbs Partners) engaged in bad faith bargaining, and, among other things, refused health care coverage for trans and gender diverse employees, and also refused to expand maternity leave past the scant few weeks.
After five long sessions tussling with G/O counsel, GMG Union members voted to strike (93% voted for strike).
Mutants are advised to show solidarity by boycotting: Kotaku, Jalopnik, The Root, Lifehacker, and Jezebel.
This post will be updated once a fair and equitable contract has been signed.
Victory. As of one hour ago, the GMG Union announced a signed contract with all desired provisions. All.
That whole suite of sites has been bleeding good authors for a while. I hope they gain some fair treatment for themselves and regain some of their former glory.
IO9, Kotaku, Jalopnik, and Gizmodo are all on my daily trawlāIāve moved them to a secondary folder so I donāt accidentally click on them. Best of luck to the GMG Union!!
Oh hell yes. I stopped reading the sites shortly after the deadspin debacle. Iāll follow a link now and then to the root or jalopnik, but fuck herbs. Iāll be adding this to my regular rotation. Give me all the Torch.
The avclub will never return to its former gloryā¦ they closed the Chicago office. I mean, that site was historically a Chicago institution, it wonāt be the sameā¦
Itās not been the same for a while. The comment section, formerly the only place I ever posted online thoughts, has devolved from a den of pop-culture weirdos to a few die-hards and a bunch of anti-woke bros. Nathan Rabinās departure was the first blow but theyāve lost so many fine writers since then.
I really like(d) the AV Club (before they were intentionally put into a death spiral). Does anyone from the peanut gallery have any suggestions for alternate sites? Iām hoping a group of contributes (maybe the group that just got forced out) will come up with something like the Jalopnik writers did, but not holding my breath.
I try to avoid those sites ever since lifehacker had the video of the soldier getting burned alive in a cage on its front page as some kind of a share from one of the other sites. It was disturbing enough to me that if they share āimportantā news from across the network that they put a snuff film on the page. Plus, I got talked to about it by corpsec.
But that said , I wish them the best in their union struggles and always support unions.
Kinja kills everything it touches. Itās like the anti-comment section comment section. Iāve tried for years to participate in good faith on the various GMG sites by providing thoughtful and reasoned replies, yet I can never seem to get out of the gray zone so my comments get buried making the whole endeavor a waste of time.
āOh just participate moreā they say - but why bother when the system is designed specifically to discourage participation? Why spend time trying to reply to stuff knowing it will be buried in the hope that some day in the future that maybe it wonāt? Nah, fuck that. I have better things to do with my life.
(It also doesnāt help that actually logging in doesnāt seem to work like 90% of the time.)
