WHYY workers get better wages and protections against AI in new contract

Workers at WHYY, Philadelphia’s public media organization, have ratified a new three-year contract with improved benefits and wages.

The group of roughly 80 unionized workers is represented by SAG-AFTRA, a union with about 160,000 members in entertainment and media, which includes actors, journalists, editors, puppeteers, and other professionals.

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

A tentative agreement was reached last Thursday, the same day that voting began. The vote concluded on Monday, with members voting electronically. An overwhelming majority voted for the ratification, according to the spokesperson.

“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 Monday via email.

The new contract is the unit’s second and comes as workers have been building awareness of their demands, sharing posts on social media and hosting a rally.

“I feel just a lot of relief,” Kayla Watkins, a producer and union steward, said Monday before the vote count came in. “I didn’t want to agree to anything that was less than what WHYY really could offer because we’ve had such success at the company, and so it felt like the employees should feel that success.”

WHYY employees got their first union contract in 2021 after voting to unionize in 2019. About 75 workers were covered by that three-year agreement when it was ratified, which included six weeks of paid parental leave, minimum salaries dependent on the kind of job and years employed, as well as raises for each year of the contract.

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

Wages are increasing 3% across the board, and a third of members will receive increases between 4% and about 11%, according to the SAG-AFTRA spokesperson.

Under the old contract, workers got access to health care after three months with the company. Going forward, employees will need to wait only one month, said Watkins.

“I know when I started, having three months of a period with no health insurance, it can be really nerve-racking,” she said.

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

Workers have been required to be in the office three days a week. If the company wishes to change the hybrid policy, the new contract mandates that management must give four weeks’ notice.

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

“We wanted some assurances that you’re not going to just hire a voice and use them for the weekend readings,” Watkins said. “We want to make sure we keep a human-centered workforce.”

“I’m hoping that these changes just make it so that we can have a body that stays and feels comfortable and feels like they can advance at WHYY,” Watkins said.

WHYY has seen significant turnover since the last contract.

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

On Oct. 9, WHYY workers and supporters attended a midday rally where employees spoke about the improvements they were seeking in their new contract. Some 70 people gathered outside the media company’s offices on North Sixth Street as cars and trucks drove by honking in support.

City Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke spoke to workers and supporters about how he personally has benefited from the employee turnover at WHYY, hiring a former employee as his staffer who could not afford to stay at WHYY as his family grew, he said.

“From what I hear, he was far from the only person to leave because a raise was strictly off the table,” he said.

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 that position since 1997. He made roughly $645,000 in compensation from WHYY as well as about $38,000 in other income from related work, according to 2022 tax documents for the company.

The union said in July that their lowest salaried member at WHYY earns $48,921.

The organization had 300 employees in 2022 according to tax documents and spent around $23,257,000 on employee salaries and benefits that year — roughly $77,500 per employee.