WGA East members who work for ABC News have voted overwhelmingly 96% in favor of backing a new three-year contract that will bring several changes, per Deadline.
The 110-member bargaining team includes various workers for the company, who are based in New York and Washington, D.C. Furthermore, most of these members work at “Good Morning America,” WABC, ABC News Radio, NewsOne, and ABC’s national news programs.
“We are proud our members have won solid increases in pay and pension contributions, gains for full-time ‘temps,’ DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) protections, and more,” said Lowell Peterson, the guild’s executive director. “This demonstrates that, even in a mature industry, collective bargaining works.”
In the new contract, overall pay and pension packages grow minimums by 9% over three years. Also, there will be significant increases in the minimum rates for desk associates in D.C. and boosts in minimums for specific positions where people work under personal service contracts.
Other details regarding the agreement between the two parties include:
• Increases in paid time off
• Staff employees will get four weeks of vacation after 10 years of service
• “Full-time” temps will get an additional comp day
• Staff employees will get an additional floating holiday
• Temps’ comp days will not count against their accrual of seven sick days a year
• Both staff and full-time temps will get recharge days
• Vacation differential for full-time temps will increase from 5% to 6%
• Labor-management work-from-home committee to review any manager’s decision denying a work-from-home request
• Temps who opted out of the pension and health plans may opt-in one time during the 3-year contract period
• The company will provide Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training, including unconscious bias training to bargaining unit employees on an annual basis.
Eduardo Razo is the Assistant Content Editor for BNM, which includes writing daily news stories on the news media industry. He can be found on Twitter @eddierazo_ or you can reach him by email at eddie1991razo@gmail.com.
