Unions representing employees of two well-known podcasting companies owned by Spotify, the audio streaming giant, announced on Wednesday that they had ratified their first employment contracts.
The larger of the two unions, with 65 employees, is at The Ringer, a sports and pop culture website with a podcasting network. The second union of the podcast production company Gimlet Media employs almost 50 people. The two groups were among the first in the podcasting industry to unionise, and both are represented by the Writers Guild of America, East.
Lowell Peterson, the guild’s executive director, said the contracts showed that the companies’ writers, producers and editors “add tremendous value to the major platforms they create content for.”
The contracts provide for a minimum base salary of $ 57,000 for union members at The Ringer and $ 73,000 at Gimlet Media, an annual pay increase of at least 2 percent, and severance pay of at least 11 weeks.
The agreements contain provisions that restrict the use of contractors and allow workers to obtain titles appropriate to their seniority.
The two companies will set up diversity committees made up of managers and union members and require that at least half of the candidates seriously considered for union positions open to outsiders come from under-represented groups such as ethnic minorities or people with disabilities come.
Ringer and Gimlet Media have dealt with internal race-related conflicts over the past year. At The Ringer, staff complained about the shortage of black writers and editors after company founder Bill Simmons hosted a podcast in which a colleague personally discussed the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder and praised Mr. Simmons’ commitment to diversity.
At Gimlet, the company recently canceled the last two episodes of a four-part series on racial inequality in food magazine Bon Appétit after employees complained that Gimlet himself suffered from similar problems.
Workers at both companies were unionized in 2019 and contract negotiations were at times controversial. Management refused to establish a top union priority – labor rights created by writers and podcasters that the companies will keep – but the unions ratified the treaties unanimously, according to the Writers’ Guild.
“We started this process with the aim of improving working conditions and remuneration in the company, especially for our worst-paid members,” the Ringer Union said in a statement. “We are very pleased to have achieved this goal with this contract.”
Spotify did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
