National Writers Union Withdraws from Huffington Post Boycott

[Omaha Steve]

FREELANCE WRITERS CREATE WEALTH…ASK ARIANNA HUFFINGTON

Today, the National Writers Union/UAW Local 1981 is withdrawing from the boycott of the Huffington Post, which began after it was acquired by AOL for $315 million last March. NWU and The Newspaper Guild-CWA have been “electronic picket captains” with the support of many, many progressive writers, bloggers and organizations. For now, the boycott has run its course.

But the NWU is continuing and intensifying our Pay The Writer! campaign to establish fair pay rates for freelance journalists working for the Huffington Post and other online publications. On October 11, we held our first national event, a live-streamed panel discussing the future of online freelance journalism (video available on www.paythewriter.org). We will continue to organize around these principles:

Freelance journalists working for for-profit, multi-million dollar online publications should get paid.

If you cover the news for anybody, you should get paid.

If you take on assignments, with an editor, you should get paid.

Occasional contributions by writers, educators or activists who are promoting a book or a cause could be unpaid and that fact should be acknowledged at the end of the article.

Frequent and regular contributors should be paid.


NWU President Larry Goldbetter said, “Writers create more than content. We create value and wealth. Just ask Arianna Huffington. Working without pay should not be the expectation of online publications – or online writers. Quality journalism must be justly compensated.”

Today we are in touch with hundreds more writers than we were when we started, and some are joining NWU. Over the coming months our organizing drive will become more active and visible, as hundreds and then thousands of freelance writers add their collective knowledge and wisdom to this campaign. Goldbetter said, “We are confident we are gathering the forces that will make Pay The Writer! a reality.”

The National Writers Union is the nation’s only labor union and advocacy organization for freelance writers in all genres, media, and formats. In addition to print media writers, NWU represents electronic writers and editors of blogs, e-newsletters and web sites. NWU is affiliated with the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the AFL-CIO. NWU’s headquarters are at 256 W. 38th St., Suite 703, New York, NY 10018.