Harper Collins Union Strikes
On Wednesday, 20 July workers at the Harper Collins publishing company in New York City have joined the #hotlaborsummer with their own #hcponstrike.
The workers voted with a 99% majority to go on strike. Via NYT:
HarperCollins union members went on a one-day strike on Wednesday, with around 100 employees and additional supporters marching in front of the company’s corporate headquarters in Manhattan in the sticky heat for higher wages, better family leave benefits and a stronger commitment to diversity from the company.
Workers at the publishing house join a wave of union activity this summer at companies and corporations both new to and familiar with organizing.
The workers at Harper Collins seek a new contract after it expired at the end of last year.
They have been working without a contract since then, at a time when the company is enjoying record profits. Via Publishers Weekly:
Higher backlist and frontlist sales, a 16% increase in digital sales, an even bigger increase in print sales, two acquisitions, and favorable currency fluctuations all contributed to a record year at HarperCollins. For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2021, revenue rose 19%, to just under $2 billion ($1.985 billion), and earnings jumped 42%, to $303 million. Excluding changes in exchange rates and acquisitions, sales were up 14%.
Among the workers’ demands for the new contract are higher pay and a more diverse workplace. In terms of financial compensation, New York City is the major hub for the publishing industry, yet the cost of living outstrips what most workers in the industry can afford to pay. Via NYT:
“I love my job, I love my authors, it’s an incredible privilege to get to work on these books, and I would love to do it for the rest of my life, if I can afford to,” said Stephanie Guerdan, an associate editor in the children’s department who joined the strike.
But with a salary of $56,000 a year, she said, she worries she won’t be able to stay.
“There’s a running joke in publishing that you have to have a rich partner to be able to make it in the industry,” she said. “That should be a thing of the past.”
In terms of diversity, New York City is diverse, but that reality is not always reflected within the publishing industry. Unfair financial compensation means lack of diversity in a country where the household wealth for people of color is consistently less than for white people. People of color simply can’t afford to make a dent in the industry. Via City Limits:
The picketers also demanded HarperCollins address what they say is a lack of racial and ethnic diversity in the company. One picketer carried signs reading “If Black lives really mattered, they’d pay them a living wage,” while others chanted, “Diversity in publishing matters.”
While #hotlaborsummer is new coinage, Harper Collins workers enjoy the distinction of being one of the most established unionized publishing houses in the country, having been organized for more than 60 years.
The HarperCollins union is an affiliate of UAW Local 2110. Via UAW Local 2110 release:
The union, Local 2110 of the UAW, represents 250+ employees in editorial, sales, publicity, design, legal, and marketing departments. The union is bargaining for higher pay, improved family leave benefits, a greater commitment to diversifying staff, and stronger union protection.
The union is a relative rarity in the publishing industry. UAW Local 2110 has made a minor specialty of being a vigorous advocate for workers in industries where the instinct to organize is often numbed by an outdated sense of “noblesse oblige.” Via UAW Local 2110 release:
HarperCollins employees have had a union for more than 80 years and it is one of the earliest unions of “white collar” workers in the country. It is part of Technical, Office and Professonal Union UAW Local 2110. Contract negotiations with HarperCollins management began in December 2021 when a one-year pandemic extension of the contract was set to expire. Currently, HarperCollins is the only major book publisher in the U.S. to be unionized, though many publishers in other countries have unions, and our counterparts at newspapers and magazines in the U.S. are organized.
Local 2110 UAW also represents workers at the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Columbia University, Film Forum, Teachers College, ACLU, Center for Reproductive Rights, The New Press, and many more. The union has a reputation for aggressive organizing and bargaining and progressive politics.
The strike is a valuable tool in collective bargaining negotiations, but it brings with it costs in lost wages. A strike fund has been set up to help mitigate the costs.
Via Publishers Weekly:
Striking workers are not getting paid for the day, confirmed Laura Harshberger, a senior production editor in children’s books and union chairperson. The union workers had long since set up the infrastructure to start a strike fund, assuming they would be docked pay for the strike day, but "we didn't go live until yesterday because, on Monday afternoon, every manager got an email from HR, letting them know that for anybody who didn't come to work on Wednesday, it would be an unpaid day off and it would be the managers' responsibility to make sure that was reflected in the time sheets.”
“Reflecting how rare an occurrence this is for the publisher, some managers, who "don't really understand the union," Harshberger said, even told employees to request PTO for the day, despite the HR memo. "Some of them were like, 'Oh, I heard that if you take a PTO day, you get paid, so you can just do that,'" she said. "So we had to remind everybody: this is not paid time off, you're not putting anything in your time sheet. That's your manager's responsibility." At that point, she said, workers got "nervous" about lost wages, but Harshberger expects that the strike fund will "be able to provide at least $150 to cover lost wages to every employee who needs it."
With a 99% strong vote to strike, the union workers are unified. There are also signs of support from other actors within the publishing industry, writers and booksellers. Via The Mary Sue:
Many booksellers and authors have preemptively begun to signal support to help raise awareness, like Courtney Milan, Xiran Jay Zhao, Emily Llyod-Jones, Kelsey Rodkey, Sarah Henning, Luna McNamara, Charish Reid, and dozens (if not hundreds) more. HarperCollins has declined to speak to reporters at other publications, citing that they don’t discuss ongoing negotiations.
Stay tuned as the story unfolds.
