Univision Lays Off Over 200 Workers In Post-Election Shake-Up

Isaac Lee, Univision’s chief news, entertainment and digital officer, speaks during a Bloomberg Television interview in New York on June 8, 2015. Univision Communications, the parent company of several major TV channels and news sites, is laying off between 200 and 250 workers as part of a company-wide restructuring, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday. The layoffs amount to 6 percent of the media company’s workforce, the Post reported. The changes “are in response to difficult times, challenging times,” Isaac Lee, Univision Communications’ chief news, entertainment and digital officer, told the Post. The company lost $30.5 million in the third quarter of this year. Univision Communications owns the popular Spanish-language television channel Univision, the African American-focused news site The Root, Fusion Media, and Gizmodo Media Group, the group of sites formerly known as Gawker Media. Univision plans to bring The Root and Fusion under the umbrella of Gizmodo, according to Lee’s letter to Fusion staff about the changes. The shakeup follows a successful union drive at Fusion. Fusion’s editorial staff voted overwhelmingly last week to unionize with the Writers Guild of America, East, after prolonged resistance from management. The Root’s staff members signed cards electing the Writers Guild as their collective bargaining representative in October and have yet to receive a response from management. “We are in the process of addressing the request for representation by the digital editorial employees at The Root,” Lee wrote in the letter to staff. Gizmodo’s employees unionized with the Writers Guild in June 2015 and ratified a collective bargaining contract that remained in effect when Univision bought it for $135 million in August. (The Huffington Post’s management voluntarily recognized its staff’s unionization with the Writers Guild in January.) The layoffs affect many of the Fusion workers who recently unionized, including some staff members active in the organizing effort. Lee, who is also CEO of Fusion Media, told the Post that he was not opposed to workers choosing to join a union. He also wrote in his letter that laid-off Fusion staff, unionized or not, would receive severance benefits “consistent” with those in Gizmodo employees’ collectively bargained contract, despite the fact that Fusion’s contract negotiations have yet to begin. Fusion management has respected the outcome of its employees’ union election. But prior to that, the company refused to voluntarily recognize the union and executives held mandatory closed-door meetings with employees to dissuade them from unionizing. Univision did not immediately respond to a request for comment on details of the layoffs and restructuring. This is a developing story and will be updated.

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