Twenty-four hours before the first A-list guests were scheduled to walk the red carpet of the Met Gala, celebrities stationed in lavish hotels across New York City were putting the finishing touches on their designer looks. At the same time, the members of the Condé Union, a News Guild of New York-CWA affiliate composed of staffers from major fashion and lifestyle magazines like Vogue, Vanity Fair, Glamour and GQ, were putting the finishing touches on their picket signs. They planned to crash the fashion scene’s most exclusive and high-profile fundraising party after years of the company’s bad-faith bargaining.
So when a deal was finally announced in the early morning of the first Monday in May, the world learned that the Condé Union had applied the perfect amount of pressure on Condé Nast to get the company to agree. By threatening to disrupt one of the company’s most important nights of the year, workers’ demands were finally heard — all without a full-on strike.
The Condé Union announced the tentative agreement in a series of celebratory tweets after the company sent a memo to its staff around 3:30 a.m. notifying them of the deal. The tweets went public only eight hours before the first celebrities arrived at the Met in their black Sprinter vans.
WHEN WE FIGHT, WE WIN: We are excited to announce that we have a tentative agreement with @condenast on our first contract. Our pledge to do ‘whatever it takes’ ahead of the #metgala2024 moved the company and our progress at the bargaining table kicked into high gear… pic.twitter.com/Yu2nm4di86
— condeunion (@condeunion) May 6, 2024
Although the full agreement has not yet been made public, the union announced on social media that it had secured a winning contract for its workers: a “$61,500 starting salary floor; an end to the two-tier permalance system, just cause, expanded bereavement leave, two more weeks of family leave (14 total) and $3.3 million in total wage increases.” The two-tier “permalance” (i.e. permanent freelance) system refers to an employment structure that locks workers into long-term contracts with a primary client, often with large volumes of work, without guaranteeing the benefits a full-time worker would receive. This structure has become increasingly prevalent in journalism in recent years as many publications have chosen to considerably shrink their full-time staff.
The union also negotiated eight weeks of severance pay and other benefits for members who have already been terminated by the company. Condé Union members are expected to vote on whether to ratify the deal later this week. There is every reason to believe they will ratify the agreement.
How did the union win?
The union first announced it was prepared to picket the Met Gala as part of its broader plan for “a week of union actions” leading up to the big event, including a potential work stoppage beginning May 6. In a tweet shared two days before the gala, the union laid out the stakes if the company failed to bargain in good faith: “Meet us at the table or meet us at The Met on Monday.” The union began organizing in 2018 but has been bargaining with Condé Nast since 2022 with no success in securing its first contract until this week.
We’re doing whatever it takes: Meet us at the table or meet us at The Met on Monday. #FairContractNow pic.twitter.com/gDlgUsbrjb
— condeunion (@condeunion) May 5, 2024
In a statement released by the News Guild of New York-CWA Local 31003 on April 29, the union shared that “[m]anagement has moved at a glacial pace on negotiating a fair contract that honors members’ work,” proclaiming that “it’s up to management to decide what happens next.”
The union made the most of a sensitive moment. The Met Gala was already expected to be more politically charged than most years as pro-Palestinian protesters planned to draw attention to Israel’s latest military escalation in Gaza. The combined effect of the antiwar protests and picketing union activists would threaten the grandeur and, in some ways, delusion that makes the Met Gala what it is.
Throughout the negotiations, Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue and a major player in Condé Nast’s decision-making, has become an easy but fair target of criticism in labor circles. In a page on the union’s website titled “Anna Wears Prada: Workers Get Nada,” the union attacked the gaudy pageantry of the Met Gala as a distraction from Condé Nast’s abusive labor practices and excessive layoffs: “While Anna Wintour, Vogue editor in chief, mingles with fellow millionaires at the Met Gala, Condé Nast is refusing to settle a fair contract — and is trying to lay off nearly a hundred Condé Union members.”
In January, Wintour reportedly fired 5% of Pitchfork’s staff without taking off her sunglasses. The union suggested that the execution of the decision and the decision itself revealed a callousness and unwillingness to connect with workers that has chilled the climate at the bargaining table. Wintour has never made an appearance at bargaining sessions.
A few days after Wintour’s announcement, union members responded by staging a 24-hour walkout, hoping to force the company to reconsider layoffs. The walkout gained media attention after actress Anne Hathaway walked off the set of a Vanity Fair photoshoot in support of striking workers — an unscripted sequel to her 2006 performance as a disgruntled magazine staffer suffering through life as an assistant to a Wintour-like character in “The Devil Wears Prada.” The film was based on the cutthroat culture at Vogue.
The plan to picket the Met Gala marked an escalation of union tactics that began in the weeks preceding the event. In late March, staffers took their demands directly to the CEO’s office and accused management of avoiding negotiations.
Management is threatening more layoffs—despite the fact they stand to benefit from Reddit’s upcoming IPO.
— condeunion (@condeunion) March 20, 2024
We’re marching on the boss to demand answers, but NO executive is present to provide information.
Stop hiding from your employees, @CondeNast. pic.twitter.com/BlBmcHbG2p
The Met Gala’s theme was “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” but the dress code was described as “The Garden of Time.” “The Garden of Time” is a 1962 short story by J. G. Ballard that chronicles a house of aristocrats being surrounded by “an immense rabble” of angry peasants and commoners, ultimately pointing to the inevitable demise of wealth and social power. For an event that cost $75,000 per ticket, the dress code dripped with unbearable irony and exactly the kind of detachment from the needs of Conde Nast’s employees that the company’s bargaining strategy conclusively proved.
Union activism, savvy public relations strategies and public pressure are key to elevating the labor movement’s causes to national attention. It’s important that workers remind the nation that no gathering of the ultra-rich should be considered “protest-proof.” Using strike threats and public pressure as a means of increasing union visibility can not only secure contract wins like they did for the workers of Condé Nast but also inspire other workers to organize their workplaces or ratchet up their bargaining and collective action tactics.
Even though a strike never became necessary, the Condé Union demonstrated the power of collective action and union strategies that focus on applying public pressure. Before the deal was announced, Molly Santucci, Bon Appétit culinary producer and interim vice president of the Condé Nast Entertainment bargaining unit, told The Hollywood Reporter, “[a]t the end of the day, our goal as a union is to get a fair contract. Our goal is not to strike.” Fair work for fair pay is always in style, and it’s time Condé Nast gets caught up on the trends.
