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from the Retaliation?-or-Post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc? dept.
DNAinfo and Gothamist Are Shut Down After Vote to Unionize
A week ago, reporters and editors in the combined newsroom of DNAinfo and Gothamist, two of New York City's leading digital purveyors of local news, celebrated victory in their vote to join a union.
On Thursday, they lost their jobs, as Joe Ricketts, the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade who owned the sites, shut them down.
At 5 p.m., a post went up on the sites from Mr. Ricketts announcing the decision. He praised them for reporting "tens of thousands of stories that have informed, impacted and inspired millions of people." But he added, "DNAinfo is, at the end of the day, a business, and businesses need to be economically successful if they are to endure."
[...] in the financially daunting era of digital journalism, there has been no tougher nut to crack than making local news profitable, a lesson Mr. Ricketts, who lost money every month of DNAinfo's existence, is just the latest to learn. In New York City, the nation's biggest media market, established organizations such as The Village Voice, The Wall Street Journal and The Daily News have slashed staff or withdrawn from street-level reporting. The Voice stopped publishing its print edition in September.
What about The Daily Planet and Gotham Globe?
Gothamist's NY Writing Staff Votes to Unionize; Owner Shutters All *ist Sites
Deadspin reports:
Joe Ricketts, TD Ameritrade founder, billionaire, and father of Chicago Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts, shut down the local news network of DNAinfo and Gothamist sites today, a week after the writers voted to unionize.
[...] With the sites' articles functionally locked, the reported 115 newly jobless writers now have no clips [to which they can refer potential employers] as they search for work.
Deadspin has scathing comments about Ricketts's explanation for his action.
The Los Angeles Daily News reports:
Angelenos hoping to read the latest local reporting from LAist.com [on November 2] were instead greeted by a letter from the news site's CEO, announcing he had shuttered the parent media company and all of its local news sites.
[...] [Ricketts bought news company DNAinfo in 2010 and, in March 2017, DNAinfo] purchased Gothamist, which ran news sites in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.
[...] Julia Wick, editor-in-chief at LAist, [...] said she and her Los Angeles team supported the New York staff's decision to unionize. Originally, she said, all five Gothamist sites planned to join the union, but the Chicago newsroom dropped out, ending the collective effort.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @12:34AM (13 children)
You have a work problem. You get a union. Now you have two problems.
The proper solutions are class action lawsuits and anti-trust actions. A supreme court decision and the lack of lawmaking action to undo it have made class action lawsuits nearly extinct, and our well-lobbied politicians aren't too keen on anti-trust actions, but the fact remains that those are the proper solutions.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday November 07 2017, @12:43AM (10 children)
On exactly what grounds do you see the staff taking the owner to court?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Tuesday November 07 2017, @01:02AM
On waste coffee grounds. Lots of them if the owner is large, I imagine.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @02:05AM (8 children)
If the owner does something illegal, you take them to court.
I did NOT say that something illegal had been done. I think this was all 100% legal in fact. Assuming that to be the case, then tough shit. You don't get to boss the boss around. Start your own damn company if you wish to run the show.
The idea that workers would bully the owner via a union is simply offensive.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Tuesday November 07 2017, @02:27AM (6 children)
Heaven forbid the people who are actually doing all the work get any say in how things are run.
The workers (managers included) *are* the business - without them all that remains is supplies and facilities, which is all the "owner" actually owns.
(Score: 3, Informative) by qzm on Tuesday November 07 2017, @03:37AM (3 children)
Well, since its obvious so easy, may I suggest you call them up and set them up operating again?
No bought it should be trivial, since 'The workers (managers included) *are* the business'
The small fact that the business was running at a loss, and their wages were having to be bolstered directly out of the pocket of the owner means nothing obviously.
The money the owner paid for the business is also of no value it seems.
No, you are right, in fact I'm not sure why there is even a fuss - hasnt the owner just generously set them free? They should have a new version up and running within
days no doubt, since it is so easy.
However, one small detail.
NO DAMN WAY do employees have any form of natural right to decide how things are run outside what they are employed to decide.
If they want that, they are free to go and start a company that THEY own.
THAT is what ownership actually means - you should try it some time - its not easy.
(Score: 3, Informative) by crafoo on Tuesday November 07 2017, @04:13AM (2 children)
Honestly, this happens quite often. Sometimes it's just a few key people who say, "fuck it, this guy is an asshole. let's go do this ourselves." It's happened in my industry quite a few times. Usually it works out pretty well too. The owners / board of directors are typically kind of dumb. The people who actually know what's going on split of, start a new company, take a good chunk of the market.
I watched a fairly arrogant supplier of a key component have this happen to them not too long ago. Dipshit private owner. Employees sick of his infantile nonsense. Vote to unionize didn't work out. They split off, start a competing business literally down the street. Within 5 years they have 30% of the business and growing. Both shops are unionized now. We buy from the new guys because we know the technical teams at both and ... well the good ones left for ++risk and reward.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @11:48AM (1 child)
This is absolutely true but in no way means employees should be in control of what they do not own. The answer to a badly run bit of capitalism isn't socialism but more capitalism.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday November 08 2017, @03:17PM
They own themselves and their labor, which is all anyone has any natural right to own. As such they are perfectly justified in deciding how they want to allocate it.
Which is all a union really is - a bunch of workers banding together to say "treat us all better, or we'll all leave." They have to band together because the capital side of the collaboration almost always concentrates power much more tightly so that, to have a fair negotiation between roughly equal powers, labor needs to pool their collective power. If the boss doesn't like it, they're always free to fire everyone and try to replace them. They rarely do so though, because labor usually brings at least as much value to the table as the capital the boss controls.
The answer to a badly run bit of capitalism isn't more capitalism, but better run capitalism. And to date it's looking like pretty much all unrestrained capitalism ends up rapidly falling into the same badly run state - the theory is good, but it's a poor fit to human nature as it offers dramatic rewards for socially irresponsible behavior. Thus far, incorporating a few bits of socialism into the mix seems to be the best counterpoint anyone has come up with.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @03:52AM (1 child)
When you hire a plumber to replace something, he's the one doing all the work. He should get to say how things are run, right? (don't be a hypocrite now)
So if he runs the drain pipe across the middle of a room, about a foot above the ground, you'll be fine with that. He's the one doing the work, so he decides how things should be run.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday November 07 2017, @03:00PM
Where did I say the employees should be able to make decisions unilaterally?
You insist on having the plumbing run through a tightly winding crawlspace filled with snakes and sewage, and he'll quite likely tell you to find someone else to do the job (i.e. replace you with another customer) just as fast as you'd replace him if he insisted on running it through your living room.
Most businesses consist of both capital (owner) and labor. Both depend on the other for continued smooth operation, and capital is quite often the easier to replace. It behooves both sides to cooperate to develop a mutually agreeable working environment and equitable division of profits. Obviously either side can overplay their hand, but the most common abuse seems to be the owners (or managers, they're often in a grey area between the two) acting as though they own the employees, or are somehow doing them a favor by employing them. If that were true, a good capitalist should immediately replace those employees with ones who would pull their own weight.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @11:47AM
> The idea that workers would bully the owner via a union is simply offensive.
Without a union, the employer may have the ability to bully the workers. Not that any employer would.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @01:56AM
So you describe that the "proper" solutions are non-viable, unless and until the government pulls its finger out on behalf of average Americans. Fat chance of that before the revolution.
What, then, are the workers to do to seek fair treatment, if not bargain collectively?
"Unions bad!" is just as idiotic a meme as "Capitalism bad!".
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday November 07 2017, @03:14PM
Are you seriously advocating for class-action lawsuits? I thought the people here saw those things as ways to benefit lawyers and nobody else.
Sure do love the consistency in these comment sections...
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?