WHY workers vote to approve a new contract

Employees of WHYY, the public media organization in Philadelphia, have signed a new three-year contract with improved benefits and wages.

The group of approximately 80 unionized employees is represented by SAG-AFTRA, a union with approximately 160,000 members in entertainment and media, including actors, journalists, editors, puppeteers, and other professionals.

The most recent three-year contract for WHYY employees expired Oct. 1 and negotiations for a new contract began in June, a SAG-AFTRA spokesperson confirmed.

A provisional agreement was reached last Thursday, the same day voting began. Voting concluded on Monday and members voted electronically. According to the spokesperson, an overwhelming majority voted in favor of ratification.

“We are pleased that our union members have ratified the new contract, and we look forward to the next steps in SAG-AFTRA’s ratification process,” Gary Bramnick, senior director of marketing communications for WHYY, said via email Monday.

The new contract is the unit’s second and comes as workers have woken up to their demands, shared posts on social media and organized a rally.

“I feel tremendous relief,” Kayla Watkins, a producer and union commissioner, said Monday before the vote count came in. “I didn’t want to agree to anything that was less than what WHYY really had to offer, because we’ve had so much success at the company, and so I felt like the employees needed to feel that success.”

Protection against AI, better parental leave

WHYY employees received their first union contract in 2021 after voting to unionize in 2019. About 75 employees were covered by that three-year agreement when it was ratified, which included six weeks of paid parental leave, minimum wages depending on job type and years of service, as well as increases for each year of the contract.

The new three-year contract includes higher wages, rules around the use of artificial intelligence (AI), expanded paid parental leave, protections for hybrid work and improvements in healthcare coverage.

Wages will increase 3% across the board, and a third of members will see increases between 4% and about 11%, the SAG-AFTRA spokesperson said.

Under the old contract, employees were given access to health care after three months with the company. In the future, employees will only have to wait one month, Watkins said.

“I know when I started, going for three months without health insurance, it could be really nerve-wracking,” she said.

Parental leave has been extended from six to nine weeks, and bereavement leave from three to five days. Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve have been added as holidays.

Employees must be in the office three days a week. If the company wants to change the hybrid policy, the new contract requires management to give four weeks’ notice.

The contract also creates protections for employees against certain AI tools.

“We wanted to be assured that you’re not just going to hire a voice and use it for the weekend readings,” Watkins said. “We want to make sure we maintain a people-oriented workforce.”

“I hope these changes allow us to have a body that lasts and feels comfortable and feels like it can make progress at WHYY,” Watkins said.

WHY turnover in the newsroom

WHYY has achieved significant revenue since the last contract.

Between early 2021 and early 2022, about half of the newsroom staff left or gave notice, The Inquirer reported in February 2022. Employees interviewed by The Inquirer at the time spoke of low morale, a focus on short news stories instead of the longer periods that had originally attracted them to the work, and the lack of opportunities for career development. The turnover came at a time of disruption in the local news media, The Inquirer reported.

On October 9, WHYY employees and supporters attended an afternoon meeting where employees discussed the improvements they were seeking in their new contract. About seventy people gathered outside the media company’s offices in Noord Sixth Street as cars and trucks passed by in support.

City Councilman Nicolas O’Rourke spoke to employees and supporters about how he has personally benefited from employee turnover at WHYY, hiring as a staffer a former employee who couldn’t afford to stay at WHYY as his family grew, he said.

“From what I’ve heard, he was far from the only person who left because a pay increase was absolutely out of the question,” he said.

How WHYY is doing financially

WHYY is a nonprofit organization funded in part by members and grants. The company is led by President and CEO William J. Marrazzo, who has held the position since 1997. He earned about $645,000 in compensation from WHYY and about $38,000 in other income from related work, according to 2022 tax filings for the company.

The union said in July that its lowest-paid member at WHYY makes $48,921.

According to tax documents, the organization had 300 employees in 2022 and spent about $23,257,000 on employee salaries and benefits that year — about $77,500 per employee.