Prominent labor leaders may have to cross 'virtual' picket line against Huffington Post
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AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka last year at Carmichaels Area High School, from which he graduated in 1967. He writes for The Huffington Post but is not paid. -
USW President Leo Gerard in Pittsburgh earlier this year. He writes for The Huffington Post but is not paid. -
Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post, acquired earlier this year by AOL for $315 million.
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A strike called by The Newspaper Guild against a national website may have some unlikely people crossing the virtual picket line: leaders of the nation's labor organizations, including the United Steelworkers and the AFL-CIO.
The Newspaper Guild issued the call for a strike to writers who submit free material to The Huffington Post in the wake of the website being acquired by AOL for $315 million. The money will be paid to the privately owned website's co-founders, including Arianna Huffington, and its private investors.
The guild said the site's use of citizen journalists who cover events, mostly political campaigns, for free, and bloggers, who contribute a vast quantity of content to the site, is exploitative.
"Since 2007 and 2008, it's been a blood bath out there," Lauri Lebo, an organizer for the guild, said about layoffs of journalists from newspapers and magazines.
Many of those journalists, trying to keep their resumes fresh and their hands in the business, have turned to writing for The Huffington Post.
"People write for free with the idea that they can get this mass exposure," she said. "As for The Huffington Post, their success was built on the backs of unpaid labor. They're exploiting these journalists who still passionately believe in journalism and believed their exposure in The Huffington Post would move them forward."
Ms. Lebo said she started working on a campaign to call for a boycott of free writing for The Huffington Post before the sale, but then, when the sale was announced, the matter took on additional urgency.
"We're asking people not to write for The Huffington Post until there is some sort of pay policy set up for the bloggers," she said.
Mario Ruiz, a spokesman for The Huffington Post, said the website does pay journalists: the 160 full-time editors and reporters who make up the website's newsroom.
"However, we make a distinction between our newsroom staffers and our group bloggers, most of whom are not professional writers but come from all walks of life -- from officeholders, students and professionals to professors, entertainers, activists and heads of nonprofits," he said.
First Published March 22, 2011 12:00 am
