AOC and Elizabeth Warren Drop Out of New Yorker Festival in Solidarity With New Yorker Union
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) have both dropped out of the New Yorker festival in solidarity with the New Yorker Union — which has been planning a digital picket line over a labor dispute.
Both politicians were scheduled to appear as keynote speakers at the event, but have pulled out just a week before.
The New Yorker is fighting a labor battle with The New Yorker Union because the group proposed including a “just cause” provision in their contracts, which would illustrate a standard that employers have to meet before disciplining or terminating their employees.
“We don’t want to have to do these types of actions, but we feel like we have no voice because they are not hearing our pleas at the table,” Natalie Meade, a New Yorker editorial staffer and a unit chair of the New Yorker union, said of the digital picket.
The union sent a letter to the politicians this month, both of whom regularly advocate for the rights of working families, asking them to reconsider their involvement in the festival.
“The NewsGuild and The New Yorker Union are fighting for basic dignity on the job and we stand with them,” Warren and Ocasio-Cortez said in a joint statement to The New York Times. “We will not cross the picket line and attend the festival unless The New Yorker leadership agrees to the union’s demands — they should do so immediately.”
“Like many other media outlets, The New Yorker strongly believes that its editorial standards should not be determined by arbitrators outside of The New Yorker, and we look forward to our continued discussions regarding just cause in the context of bargaining,” a spokeswoman for the magazine said in a statement to the Times.
The New Yorker Festival will be held online this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, and despite losing two big guests, still has Fiona Apple, Margaret Atwood, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Ethan Hawke, Jerry Seinfeld, and Yo-Yo Ma. in its lineup.
