Writers at The Onion, in what we assume is a real story, have voted to unionize with the Writers Guild of America East.
Also joining in the “yea” vote are sister publications A/V Club and Clickhole.
“It’s real news, I guarantee you,” said a spokesman for the Writers Guild of America East. The Onion is a satirical and humor online publication whose fake news stories frequently get rebroadcast in China as fact.
Univision’s Fusion Media Group controls the Onion through its 40 percent stake in the company.
Both Univision and Fusion have been racked by turmoil as they struggle to pay off a mountain of debt that has fueled its television expansion in the years before the Great Recession.
Univision’s IPO, pending since 2015, was withdrawn earlier this month and CEO Randy Falco announced he was retiring at year end.
A year ago, its Fusion subsidiary said it was searching for up to $200 million in investment to fuel expansion and aimed to break even or become modestly profitable in 2018.
New investment was never secured. Recently, the company retained the Boston Consultancy Group, which recommended that the budget of Fusion be cut by a third, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Fusion CEO Felipe Holguin and chief content officer Daniel Eilemberg left the company earlier this month.
Meanwhile, workers at the company voted to unionize.
“As we continue to work with Univision and Fusion Media Group, we are unionizing to establish transparency and open communication around the high-level decisions being made that affect Onion Inc.,” the Onion Organizing Committee said.
About 100 staffers “overwhelmingly” voted for representation, the union said.
Univision-owned Gizmodo Media had already unionized when it was still owned by Nick Denton and known as Gawker Media. The Onion News Network writers had already unionized with the Writers Guild in 2011.
Univision had not commented on the vote by presstime.
The unionization vote is part of a growing trend by editorial workers at digital publishing shops to unionize in recent years. The Writers Guild also represents Vox Media, HuffPost, Vice Media, Thrillist and Salon, among others. It also represented DNA Info, a money-losing news site that owner Joe Ricketts shut down last year shortly after workers voted to unionize.
The News Guild of New York represents digital editorial workers at the Daily Beast and the Guardian’s US operations.
