Huffington Post workers ratify first-ever union contract

Nearly a year after voting to unionize, editorial workers at the Huffington Post voted overwhelmingly to approve its first-ever collective bargaining agreement covering more than 200 people.

In addition to a minimum 3 percent annual wage hike over the next three years, the pact blocks editorial types from working on branded content or native advertising that is paid for by a sponsor or advertiser and introduces protections guaranteeing editorial independence.

Native advertising — in which advertisers prepare material that closely resembles the independently produced editorial — has been one of the fast-growing ad streams in digital publishing in recent years.

Legacy publishers from Conde Nast to Time Inc. have been pushing to allow their editorial workers to directly work on the ads, breaching the once-impenetrable barrier.

The Huffington Post pact sets a minimum pay base of $50,000 for the lowest-paid editorial reporters and $16-an-hour pay for comment moderators.

Lowell Peterson, executive director of the Writers Guild of America East, said some workers will get bumps of $10,000 to $20,000 a year to bring them up to the newly negotiated minimum.

“This proves that collective bargaining works,” said Peterson.

The vote was 169-3 in support of the agreement.

“When we decided to unionize at Huff Post, we had a lot of concerns we wanted to tackle: editorial autonomy, newsroom diversity, fair and transparent pay and job security,” said a statement from the union bargaining committee.

Huffington Post CEO Jared Grusd said, “We are very pleased to have worked collaboratively with the WGAE to have reached this agreement. We remain committed to providing growth opportunities for all of our talented and dedicated editorial and video staff to ensure the Huffington Post is the leading digital platform for news and information.”

Huffington Post is believed to be the largest digital operation to unionize. But WGAE also has approved contracts with employees at Univision-owned Gizmodo (formerly owned by Gawker) and Fusion and the Root; Think Progress; about 100 workers at Vice Media, and the CBS News digital operation in Chicago.

WGAE also has a vote by about 20 Salon Media workers to unionize, but so far no agreement with the company.