The New York Nieuwslild, which represents journalists from Business Insider, sent the following statement after the news that the publication is planning to dismiss 21% of his staff:
We received a report that Business Insider Management is planning to dismiss around 20 percent of our employees as part of their continuous ‘strategy’ to ‘build up to something new’.
Let’s be clear: this is far from something new. This is the third round of dismissals in as many years and it is unacceptable that trade union members and other talented colleagues again pay the prize for the strategic failures of the leadership of Business Insider.
Axel Springer is a multi-billion dollar company whose digital points of sale and media companies generate most of its income. The dismissals of our talented colleagues and trade union members are another example of Axel Springer’s brutal pivot away from journalism to greed.
Shocking, in the same e-mail that announces the dismissal, the management also says that it is ‘all-in on AI’, knocking itself on the back of AI use in our newsroom. To say that this is tone deaf to include in an e-mail, an understatement would be.
Our position as a Union is that no AI tool or technology can take the place of people.
There is no business insider – or Axel Springer, in that regard – without us. Every time we fired as a union, we met and we fought for voluntary buyouts and a better deal. We will continue that fight now.
We expect business insider management to follow the dismissal procedures that are described in our contract and treat our members with the respect they deserve.
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