A group of employees at WHYY in Philadelphia filed a petition Friday with the National Labor Relations Board to hold an election for a proposed union of content creators.
The employees had asked WHYY management to voluntarily recognize the union in a petition Wednesday.
Staffers “have yet to receive an answer from management,” according to a statement from the union organizing committee. “We decided to use the channels available to us to continue moving things forward. We are still open to voluntary recognition.”
In the petition for voluntary recognition, staffers said they are seeking “fair compensation; opportunities for advancement and professional development; predictable and reasonable work schedules; transparency and a meaningful say in the decisions that affect the direction of our work and our station.” The petition was signed by more than 80% of staff in the proposed bargaining unit, according to the organizing committee.
WHYY spokesperson Art Ellis said Friday that the NLRB petition “resolves the issue of how we should proceed.”
Ellis said that the station “respects the right of our employees to be represented by a union and wants to ensure that all employees will be able to make an educated decision on this issue.”
“We look forward to working with our employees through this process to discuss the issues being raised, including some that came up in our recent employee survey,” Ellis said in the Friday statement. “We welcome a dialogue with our employees about what union representation would mean for them, for managers and for WHYY as an institution.”