Another Media Outlet's Writers Decide to Unionize

NEW YORK (AP) — Vice Media's digital editorial staff are joining a union — the latest in a wave of digital staffers voting to unionize.

The Writers Guild of America, East, said Friday that the next step is negotiating a collective bargaining agreement with Vice management.

Vice CEO Shane Smith said he supported the writers' decision to unionize.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - OCTOBER 08: Vice Co-Founder Shane Smith speaks onstage during '�Missing Ink: The New Journalism� at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on October 8, 2014 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Vanity Fair)

"As an old grey-haired man all I want is for my beautiful Vice family to be happy — those writers who voted to unionize and those who did not," he said in a statement.

Begun in 1994 as an alternative magazine, New York-based Vice Media has expanded into a global media company with offices in 30 countries and online news and video channels.

Over the summer, Gawker Media, Salon and Guardian U.S. editorial staffers joined the same union. Before that, no digital media sites had been unionized. The Associated Press, The New York Times and other newspaper staffers have union representation.

The Writers Guild of America, East, is part of the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the United States. It represents writers in movies, TV, cable, digital media and broadcast news.