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The NewsGuild of New York is furious with media juggernaut Condé Nast, accusing the company of “retaliatory” firings after four employees were terminated for badgering a high-powered executive.
A group of Condé Nast staffers confronted HR chief Stan Duncan last week outside his C-suite office at the company’s 1 World Trade Center headquarters to “demand answers” on recent layoffs at WIRED and Teen Vogue. Duncan didn’t appreciate being bombarded by the rank-and-file and quickly urged them to return to their workspaces immediately.
“His response was essentially, both literally and figuratively, to close the door in their face,” NewsGuild of New York president Susan DeCarava told Fox News Digital.
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The caught-on-camera interaction resulted in the termination of four of the employees involved. The clip, posted on social media by TheWrap, has been viewed more than four million times on X, as of Wednesday morning.
Bon Appétit digital producer Alma Avalle, who is also a NewsGuild of New York leader and trans activist, was terminated, along with Wired senior White House reporter Jake Lahut, The New Yorker senior fact-checker Jasper Lo and Condé Nast Entertainment videographer Ben Dewey.
DeCarava blasted the firings as “grossly illegal tactics” designed to union-bust and intimidate.
“[Condé Nast] basically terminated them, fired them without cause, without justification, and in complete violation of the contract, which requires that management take certain steps before it goes to this ultimate kind of disciplinary act of firing someone, causing them to lose their job,” DeCarava said, noting that other staffers who confronted Duncan were suspended without pay.
“We don’t want employers to think that just because the Trump administration seems hell-bent on demonizing the press and doing away with free press and finding ways to inhibit an independent press, and free speech that the employer should then use that as an excuse to basically ignore or abrogate the collective bargaining agreements we’ve reached with them,” DeCarava added. “How do you own a media publication, or immediate empire, and you can’t answer a couple of simple questions from your own workers?”
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DeCarava believes Duncan responded the way he did to “avoid having to be accountable” for decisions that upended the lives of Condé Nast staffers.
“People are really upset. They’re upset for their co-workers on a personal level. They are upset for the bigger implications for it within Condé,” she said.
Duncan, the chief people officer for Condé Nast, “leads all HR functions, including talent acquisition and development, diversity and inclusion, employment practices, HR technology and workforce planning, and strategic business partnering,” according to his company bio.
Condé Nast said staffers were terminated for cause.
“Most people recognize that the misconduct exhibited by union members last week wouldn’t be acceptable in any workplace. Their employment was terminated with cause, as they were in violation of our company policies. Blaming the ramifications of their own misconduct on the Trump administration is pretty absurd,” a Condé Nast spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
DeCarava and the NewsGuild have planned a rally for Wednesday evening outside Condé Nast headquarters at the World Trade Center in New York. The plan is to call for the reinstatement of Avalle, Lahut, Lo and Dewey, who have been billed as the “Fired Four” by colleagues.
“These folks were exercising their rights under federal labor law. They certainly had the right to do it under the contract… also just this principle of like, free speech and accountability and transparency,” DeCarava said.
“What Stan Duncan could have done is said, ‘I can’t meet with you right now, but I’m happy to meet in another time. Let’s make a date,’” she continued. “He could have even said, ‘You know what? I can’t talk right now, but I understand there’s an issue,’ and not fired anybody, not disciplined anybody.”
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The Guild represents nearly 6,000 media professionals in New York, including staffers at The New York Times, The New Yorker, Thomson Reuters, The Nation, Condé Nast, TIME, PEOPLE, Consumer Reports, and ProPublica.
While the Guild is going to bat for the “Fired Four” and even started a fundraiser to cover their expenses while out of work, other media industry professionals believe ambushing an executive wasn’t the best idea.
“This is appallingly insubordinate and disrespectful behavior. No wonder they fired four people,” RealClearInvestigations senior writer Mark Hemingway wrote in response to video of the incident.
The layoffs that irked the “Fired Four” in the first place included an announcement that Teen Vogue would transition from a separate publication to being part of Vogue.com. The headcount reduction that came with the change caught the attention of the Guild, which noted the left-wing outlet was laying off minorities.
“Management plans to lay off six of our members, most of whom are BIPOC women or trans, including Teen Vogue’s Politics Editor — continuing the trend of layoffs at Condé disproportionately impacting marginalized employees,” the Guild said in a statement.
“Nearly all of these staffers identify as LGBTQ. As of today, only one woman of color remains on the editorial staff at Teen Vogue,” the Guild continued. “Condé leadership owes us answers — and Teen Vogue’s readership. We will get those answers.”
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“The reason why we’re here today is because of the overreaction of management that is definitely retaliatory,” DeCarava told Fox News Digital.
“I think Condé thought they might try and send us a message. And the message that we got was that they’re not to be trusted,” she continued. “I don’t think Condé totally understands what they’ve triggered here.”
A Condé Nast sent a memo to staffers on Monday explaining that the company was attempting to answer questions when the incident occurred.
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“While our labor relations team was meeting with union representatives to address their questions in accordance with the agreement, the union chose to simultaneously stage a protest in the office, encouraged by a non-employee NewsGuild representative who also participated in the protest,” the memo stated.
“In following our company policies, we took disciplinary action against employees who were engaged in harassing and intimidating conduct that interfered with our business operations. These decisions were not made lightly,” the memo continued. “This behavior is also a violation of our collective bargaining agreement with the union, and we filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board.”
Condé Nast and the Guild have each filed unfair labor practice charges against each other. A Condé Nast insider told Fox News Digital that the company has filed three previous grievances this year with the union about similar behavior. The insider also said several minutes of the incident are missing from the viral video.
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