THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME
Over the past few weeks, the Guild has met with the company over a variety of important issues: The upcoming gap in our health care costs which could lead to increases in family coverage of $250/week, the longstanding problem
of gender pay inequity and the shameful lack of diversity across the company.
The company’s responses to these issues have ranged from minimal to non-existent.
In a message yesterday, however, the company announced new job titles and responsibilities for male executives in senior management and the hiring of another non-diverse executive for a job no one even knew was open, and then
added insult to injury by stressing the new hire’s concern that his wife was going to do a lot of shopping in New York. It’s bad enough that our members have gone so long without raises that New York shopping is a distant memory, but what kind of message does
it send to the local advertisers we need to survive that shopping in New York is a concern and not shopping in Philadelphia and our suburbs.
So there’s an unwillingness to address a health care problem, a gender equity problem and a diversity problem but there’s a willingness to spend money on other jobs, other priorities and other health care plans.
Meet the new non-profit, same as the old for-profit.
In solidarity,
Howard Gensler
Diane Mastrull
Bill Ross