More than 400 employees of Condé Nast — the gigantic publisher at the helm of Vanity Fair, Vogue, GQ, Pitchfork and more — have staged a historic 24-hour walkout to protest layoffs, CNN reports.
Intentionally timed with this morning's Oscar nominations announcement, hundreds of staffers stopped working and joined the picket line outside of the company's headquarters in New York City.
This walkout follows last week's announcement from Anna Wintour that Condé Nast was "restructuring" the editorial operations of Pitchfork by folding it into GQ, resulting in many staff layoffs, including that of former Editor-in-Chief Puja Patel. (The exact number of Pitchfork employees let go has yet to be confirmed, but based on numerous journalists confirming their changes in employment status on Twitter, it's a significant chunk.)
However, Condé Nast staff ire has been provoked since November, when the company originally announced plans to cut five percent of its workforce. Then, the plan was revised into layoffs for 94 unionized members — about 20 percent of the Condé Nast Union. Even with pushback from the union's bargaining team, the publisher's most recent offer (from earlier this month) kept the number of cuts at 94 and nearly halved the proposed severance, according to union reps.
“The last nearly three months of fighting for our co-workers on the company’s layoff list has led us to today,” said Ben Dewey, vice chair of the CNE unit of Condé Nast Union. “Our 24-hour walkout is about standing firmly behind our colleagues and showing Condé Nast management in the clearest possible way that we will not tolerate their disrespect at the bargaining table over these layoffs. It is time to start bargaining in good faith with us.”
Even some marquee celebrities got involved with the protest: Anne Hathaway reportedly walked out of a Vanity Fair photoshoot in solidarity [via Variety].