Village Voice staffers are threatening to go on strike this weekend because of salary cuts and declining benefits. But that doesn’t mean that they’re going stop working—they’re just not going to let the newspaper benefit from it.
The Village Voice Media workers union has announced that in the case of a strike—which the union has authorized if a new contract isn’t agreed upon by midnight Friday—it will keep producing content and post it to a Tumblr page, where Village Voice Media can’t sell ads.
“Management has so far played hardball with the union, refusing to make an offer, while demanding extensive concessions from the newspaper’s staff,” explained a post on the site. “In the event of a work stoppage, writers, bloggers, photographers, editors, designers, and sales staff—as well as former Voice staff members and other supporters—will be publishing an alternate website, TheRealVoice.org, where readers will find the same high-quality writing there that they currently enjoy in the paper and on Voice blogs.”
The Tumblr page has already gained scores of followers and reblogs. “We just put up the Tumblr yesterday, and the numbers are growing,” Graham Rayman, speaking on behalf of his fellow Village Voice employees, told Betabeat. Although a strike looks possible, he said, “negotiations continue later this afternoon. At this moment, the two sides are still pretty far apart.”
