More than 30 temporary and per diem employees at New York Public Radio will join the organization’s SAG-AFTRA union.
NYPR and SAG-AFTRA announced Thursday that they reached an agreement to recognize the employees after the new unit requested to unionize July 12.
“The fact that this agreement was successfully achieved in a timely manner speaks to the collaborative work of our union and NYPR as partners,” said SAG-AFTRA President Gabrielle Carteris in a press release.
The new unit covers radio staffers including reporters, engineers, assistant producers and operations assistants, according to an NYPR spokesperson. SAG-AFTRA has represented NYPR employees since 2000. The unit includes more than 100 full-time employees.
“Today’s agreement shows our commitment to our temporary and per diem workforce, and the importance of their contributions to the overall success of our organization,” added NYPR CEO Laura Walker in the release.
This is fantastic news having per diem unionized great. I remember when I started at WNYC as a per diem way back then. I was bullied unremorsefully by one of the union maintenance engineering staff claims the union would have me tossed out after a 1000 hours and it was really hard. My baby was just 10 month’s old and I needed the job, calls out to HR and the senior staff just when nowhere with responses like “you need to learn to de-escalate the conflict”. I should have picked up on the culture of the organization then and run for the hills.