Spotify’s Parcast Union Members Vote Unanimously to Ratify First Contract

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Staffers at Parcast who’re unionized with the Writers Guild of America East have voted unanimously to ratify their first union contract.

In a ratification vote, 100% of the bargaining unit — composed of 56 members together with content material writers, fact-checkers, producers, researchers and different employees — voted “sure” on the tentative deal reached between the union and Parcast administration in addition to Spotify (which owns the studio) on April 6.

The three-year contract establishes two p.c wage will increase for yearly of the contract, a 12-hour relaxation interval between work days, an annual range committee funds of $100,000, no adjustments to well being advantages through the contract, 11 weeks’ minimal severance with extra time added for extra senior workers, the addition of recent, senior job titles and 4 weeks’ discover when exhibits are canceled or majorly modified. The deal additionally consists of “profession growth language” that gives for recurring efficiency evaluations, the flexibility for workers to fulfill with managers to pitch new exhibits, the means to evaluation job descriptions and obtain suggestions on job purposes. Quarterly studies on administration’s plans for content material and language round subcontracting non-union workers to do work protected by the contract are additionally included. The WGA East introduced the ratification outcomes and contract particulars on Monday.

The union additionally did win a range, fairness and inclusion precedence that negotiators pushed for, which might require that half of all job candidates surpassing the preliminary cellphone interview stage come from underrepresented backgrounds. That range objective should be reached by the tip of the contract, based on the union.

In response to the union, the contract will end in raises for all workers, with a median elevate within the first yr of the contract being 7.12 p.c per particular person. The union provides that Parcast Union’s minimal annual wage will now be about $70,000 plus time beyond regulation, and that every one employees within the unit with the bottom salaries obtained promotions on account of the contract.

“It was a protracted highway, with 15 months of bargaining, to get this deal. We’re very proud of the phrases of our new Union contract, which all of us fought collectively to realize,” the Parcast Bargaining Committee stated in a press release. “Our unit demonstrated superb solidarity, all the best way to the purpose of signing a strike pledge, and we’re happy to have the ability to transfer ahead collectively into the following chapter of our effort.”

The vote concludes a course of that started in Oct. 2020, when the Parcast Union was voluntarily acknowledged by administration and commenced working in direction of a primary settlement. Bargaining came about over the course of 15 months, with union members turning into more and more vocal in the previous few months, culminating in employees presenting a “strike pledge” signed by 96 p.c of union members to administration. A tentative deal was introduced the night time of the ultimate day of bargaining between each events.

WGA East govt director Lowell Peterson added in a press release, “Increasingly audiences hearken to well-crafted podcasts, and this settlement demonstrates that collective bargaining works on this vital sector.”

This text was initially printed by The Hollywood Reporter.



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