Our statement regarding
@iheartmedia
’s decision to lay off 18 of our colleagues. We will not be the same without these wonderful and talented humans. Please watch this space for action items to support our comrades.
📣BREAKING NEWS📣 After weeks of negotiations, we’re thrilled to announce that we’ve won union recognition! We’re excited to start bargaining for better wages & healthcare, accountability, and other long-standing issues for our colleagues and ourselves.✊❤️
🚨 It's now been more than *5 weeks* since we asked
@iHeartMedia
to recognize our union. Join us in calling on iHeart CEO Bob Pittman to recognize our union without further division or delay 🚨
📢CALL FOR SOLIDARITY: Last week, the iHeart Podcast Union emailed an open letter to all 11k employees
@iHeartMedia
asking them to join us in calling on the company to provide better pay and benefits. Now, we’re asking the same of all of you! 🧵
We are excited to announce that we have ratified our first union contract with
@iheartmedia
! This contract has immediately improved the lives of many of our members and we believe it will continue to improve our lives and working conditions. Contract highlights in the 🧵
Thanks to everyone for all of the support we've received since taking our campaign public! We believe that all workers deserve a union which is why we're calling on iHeart to recognize the
#iHeartPodcastUnion
without unnecessary division or delay. ✊✊✊
@WGAEast
1. Appropriate compensation and benefits. It has become clear that our staff is paid far below industry standard and we ask that our compensation match the products of our labor and rising living expenses.
@WGAEast
We love our work and the community we have created at iHeart. We strive to create an equitable workplace for every member of our team. To achieve this, our demands include but are not limited to:
@WGAEast
If iHeart leadership voluntarily recognizes our union and works with us to meet our demands, we can ensure that iHeart’s growth remains sustainable and that we retain our position as an industry leader.
@WGAEast
4. Clear paths for advancement and standardized job descriptions. Many of our colleagues have not received promotions or raises after years of hard work though their skills have grown exponentially during their tenure at iHeart.
We've officially formed our Bargaining Committee and are preparing for the first round of negotiations at the end of May! Can't wait to make our organizing platform a reality.💪
#1u
As we prepare for our next round of bargaining sessions this week, we are asking that you sign our letter to
@iHeartMedia
executives asking them to do better for our union and the rest of the company. Read and sign the full petition here
Thanks to all our allies & supporters throughout this process. We owe our success to colleagues at other workplaces who are leading ongoing efforts, like
@GimletUnion
,
@RingerUnion
, and
@ParcastUnion
, and to the tireless folks at
@WGAEast
who’ve connected & guided us.
Radical Optimism is thinking iHeart CEO Bob Pittman would ever pay his podcast production team anything close to industry standard salaries without 2+ years of bargaining and counting
In another attempt to discourage our members from exerting their rights, we received an email today saying we are “not allowed to distribute, solicit, or circulate any written or printed materials in work areas during work times.” Per policy, our informational material is banned.
@skybleachshark
@iHeartMedia
Please do! We aren't currently on strike, so you're not crossing a picket line by tuning in. We love our work and appreciate your support <333
As we walk into bargaining today it’s May Day, the International Workers Day celebrated almost everywhere in the world but the US, where officially it’s instead called Loyalty Day. Why? American bosses still fear what it represents. 🧵
From one set of creatives to another - congrats to all who’ve made it into
#Cannes2024
! This feels like a good time to remind everyone that
@iHeartMedia
rents a yacht to throw a party at Cannes every year. Last year the cops came to break it up
We’re glad to acknowledge that the company has engaged fairly and in good faith so far in the process.❤️ It’s a relief that it went this way, but we know this is incredibly rare, and not representative of what most workers face when forming a union.
We’re the iHeart Podcast Union. We’ve been in bargaining for our first contract for two years, because we refuse to give up on the basic principles that make up our contract.
Yesterday someone from upper management asked us to put away these shirts because “this is a workplace, after all”
It’s our contention, after all, that unions happen in workplaces !!
Taking a moment to say that we have worked so hard over these last two years. We’ve supported each other, we’ve weathered the ups and downs of this process and we’re ready to close.
@iHeartMedia
come to the table with fair proposals.
Once you’ve signed, please send a message of support on Twitter (or any other social media platform). You can view our full solidarity kit here, sample messages in this thread.
We owe so much to
@GimletUnion
,
@RingerUnion
,
@ParcastUnion
, and other shops who have paved the way to organizing the podcast industry. We’re excited to follow in your footsteps and to see many more shops follow in ours!
We're proud to be behind the incredible growth story of the podcast industry that Wall Street heard about yesterday, and we look forward to long overdue negotiations to share in & shape that growth.
If you won a
#Webby
Award, what would your 5-word speech be? The Webby 5-word speech is a great time to get creative! ✨
Tell us YOUR 5-word speech in the comments 👇
#Webbys
#5WordSpeech
We stand with our friends over at Pineapple Street Union. In a completely unacceptable move
@AudacyCorp
is going backwards in bargaining. RT to tell them this is not okay
How does one win Podcasting Company of the Year at
@TheWebbyAwards
? Well, if you ask
@iheartmedia
@iheartradio
its by critically underpaying the people that made this honor possible! Fair contract now.
Thanks to all of you we got to read our letter to management during bargaining yesterday with the statement that OVER ONE THOUSAND people had signed in solidarity ✊
Sample message three: As a proud @/iHeartPodcasts listener, I support the
@iheartpodunion
in their call to executives to provide fair pay and benefits.
We won continued contributions to our 401ks, an improved bereavement policy and improved holiday pay. As we settle in to this contract and look to the future, we know benefits will be one of our top priorities again.
Sample message two: I’m a member of [union] and demand that @/iHeartMedia executives provide fair pay and benefits for the members of the
@iheartpodunion
As
@iHeartMedia
COO Rich Bressler visits the Atlanta office, members of our bargaining team are attempting to flyer the office and facing less than friendly energy from upper management
Workers across the US are facing a slew of illegal tactics attempting to prevent their organization as we speak! While we have the momentary spotlight for our big win today, we also want to share some of the realities other workers face, and what you can do to help: 🧵
Today,
@iHeartMedia
management will sit down with our union and will again offer us less than the bare minimum. Next week they’ll host the iHeart Music Awards, putting on an expensive dog and pony show for celebrities while their employees struggle to buy groceries.
One of the most high-profile examples of illegal employer intimidation is the corporate response to the
@SBWorkersUnited
organizing campaign. It's now been 2 weeks+ since the
#Memphis7
were fired for organizing their store.
It's been 2 weeks & 1 day since the
#Memphis7
were fired for organizing their store. These partners are going to win their jobs back, along with the right to organize for all Starbucks partners. These folks are the best of Starbucks. Union-busting is the worst.
#WhichSideAreYouOn
TFW your company charters a 169 ft yacht in Cannes and the “head honchos” are “hobnobbing on the ship all week” but somehow they don’t…
-pay their production staff fair wages
-offer quality health benefits
-extend rev share to producers
iHeartMedia is being named Podcast Company of the Year tonight at the
@TheWebbyAwards
. The company paid ALMOST A MILLION DOLLARS on lobbying in the fourth quarter of 2023, but won’t offer industry-standard salaries to our union. Fair contract now
@iHeartPodcasts
!
#Webbys
🚨 After 1.5 years of bargaining and $3 billion in revenue,
@Spotify
*still* hasn't agreed to a fair contract. Solidarity with
@ParcastUnion
demanding a fair contract now! 🚨
#1u
We're in our last scheduled week at the table with Spotify management today, and we presented a strike pledge from our unit that over 96% of Parcast Union members have signed.
Hey
@GreenDay
we see you’re performing at the
#iHeartAwards
- they’re telling us they don’t have any money to pay fairly while throwing this big expensive party. Now everybody do the propaganda !
Congratulations to the workers at Amazon's Staten Island fulfillment center! They're the first Amazon warehouse to unionize with
@amazonlabor
– despite the company's attempts to stop them. It's a giant leap in the hard road to fair treatment. Solidarity!
To support the
#Memphis7
and other
@SBWorkersUnited
across the country, follow their campaign for more info and consider donating to their fundraiser if you have the means:
This morning management came back with salaries $100-$400 higher than their last below industry standard proposals. Tonight
@iHeartMedia
will accept
@TheWebbyAwards
award for Best Podcasting Company
#makeitmakesense
At a Hershey's plant in VA, workers were forced to postpone their election due to the company’s illegal union busting. A
@BCTGM
organizer reported that the illegal firing of a pro-union employee sent a chill over the factory.
@BCTGM
Hershey's hired a union busting firm and scared its workers with captive audience meetings, anti-union law signs and an anti-union website.
Anti-union ads like these ones were reportedly playing at the factory around the clock:
This announcement has come a week after iHeartRadio chair and CEO Bob Pittman appeared on Fox Business describing podcasts as the company’s secret weapon.
Management has not been transparent about the elimination of these positions, and as of close of business Wednesday there has still been no acknowledgement to the whole team that layoffs even occurred.
We are strongly opposed to this layoff, which has affected both union and non-union employees at iHeartPodcasts, some of whom have worked with us for several years.
At no point have employees received communication from management suggesting that our financial situation was perilous enough for positions to be eliminated
@iHeartMedia
can spend over $200,000 on Ted Cruz’s super PAC but won’t offer us a fair wage and better benefits. The podcasting unit is consistently the most profitable in the entire company. How can they justify their bad faith bargaining?
Not only is our
@iHeartMedia
sponsored health plan horrible, it’s also expensive. Just ask our members: “Despite getting a $10,000 raise, while doing my taxes I realized i made $4,000 LESS this year after joining the iHeart health insurance plan”