The Writers Guild of America East has taken aim at Hearst Magazines via a scathing statement in the wake of layoffs at the company Thursday morning.
The statement, attributed to Executive Director Sam Wheeler, calls Hearst “consistently anti-union” as the latest media company to “enact needless, irresponsible, and cruel layoffs of editorial employees.”
“Unsurprisingly, the small army of senior executives with make-work jobs and self-important titles, who add little to nothing to build Hearst’s brands, apparently made it through today relatively unscathed,” the statement read.
The statement continued: “Readers go to Hearst because of the talent and craft of its editorial employees. These workers make Hearst what it is. Until Hearst and the rest of the media industry recognize that the workers are the most valuable part of their companies and brands, they will continue their race to the bottom with no one to blame but themselves.”
Hearst is home to 25 brands in the U.S. including Elle, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, and Town & Country. It’s unclear how many staffers from which departments were impacted by the most recent round of layoffs, which were attributed to resource reallocations due to a changing media landscape.
The publisher is one of many that has partnered with OpenAI in recent months to integrate more than 40 of its newspapers and 20 magazines into the artificial intelligence company’s models, including ChatGPT.
This most recent round of layoffs comes after 41 staffers were cut last year due to “company restructuring.” In August, Hearst Television also let go of dozens of employees working for its streaming service Very Local.
