Vice Video Staffers Unionize With WGA East & Motion Picture Editors Guild

Vice Media employees who create video content across the company’s media outlets have unionized. The WGA East said today that it will represent the workers along with the AFL-CIO and the Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 700.

The deal covers about 430 staff and freelance employees working on video content for Vice.com, the Viceland cable channel, and Vice programming on HBO. WGAE already represents about 100 journalists working on written content for Vice.com.

The decision for video staff to recognize the unions came after a third-party card check confirmed that a majority of the company’s content creators had signed cards with the WGAE and that a majority of the company’s post-production employees had signed cards with MPEG, WGAE said today.

The agreement comes four months after a delegation from the Vice Union Organizing Committee — on behalf of Vice employees organizing with WGAE, MPEG and SAG–AFTRA — delivered a letter to management requesting the company honor their decision to unionize.

“Vice is made up of thousands of the finest storytellers, filmmakers, producers, writers and creatives,” a Vice spokesperson said today. “Working with employees who voted to join WGA East and Local 700 and those who opted not to, we’ll continue to advance a shared mission to make Vice home to the most innovative, entrepreneurial and progressive minds in media. We hope these efforts will include collectively joining forces to ensure New York State is doing everything in its power to support our content creators and our Brooklyn HQ.”

Said WGAE Executive Director Lowell Peterson: “Vice is at the forward edge of the media industry’s transformation. The WGAE knows it is essential for people who create content in this dynamic environment to have a seat at the table as the way the work is done — the way the content is made and distributed — continue to change.”