Union workers at Parcast, a podcast production company owned by Spotify, today shared details of their new three-year employment contract. The contract covers workplace issues such as pay, diversity, healthcare, severance pay and more. It’s rare for a tech company to have one union, let alone three, as is the case with Spotify. Parcast’s unionization follows successful actions at Gimlet Media and The Ringer, which signed contracts with Spotify last year.
The trade union Parccast announced at the beginning of April that it reached a deal† The union, like Gimlet and The Ringer, is represented by the Writers Guild of America, East. (Disclosure: WGAE represents the editors of Vox Media, which includes The Verge.)
The lowest-paid employees receive a wage increase of between 10 and 25 percent
The deal was announced on April 6, just days after Parcast employees threatened to resign after 15 months of negotiations. At the time, 97 percent of the unit signed a strike pledge.
Some of the terms of the contract revealed today include demands the union previously said were stumbling blocks. A proposal that would require half of all applicants who get beyond a phone interview to come from an underrepresented group was previously rejected, the union said in March. This agreement is included in the contract, with the benchmark to be reached by the end of the three-year term. The union also received an annual budget of $100,000 for the diversity committee.
Workers at Parcast, which produces popular podcasts about true crime and mystery, won pay increases for all employees, with the lowest-paid workers getting a pay increase of between 10 and 25 percent. The contract also includes a guaranteed 2 percent annual salary increase and overtime protection, an 11-week minimum departure time and a commitment not to make changes or increase costs for health benefits.
“We are very happy with the terms of our new Union contract, which we have all fought for together,” Parcast’s negotiating committee said in the press release. “Our unit showed amazing solidarity, to the point of signing a strike pledge, and we are excited to move forward together into the next chapter of our efforts.”
One issue not covered in the contract is intellectual property, which the called union as an important point of improvement that it fought for. Contracts between Gimlet and The Ringer unions also fell short on IP, a sticking point for Spotify.
The ratified Parcast contract is part of a larger wave of unionization among tech companies, from manufacturers to warehouse workers. It comes just weeks after Amazon’s historic warehouse vote earlier this month, when workers in Staten Island voted to create the company’s first-ever union in the US.
This post Parcast union contract with Spotify includes pay rises and diversity pledges
was original published at “https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/18/23030244/parcast-union-contract-spotify-pay-raise-diversity”