BuzzFeed's 'Fiscally Liberal' Founder and CEO Comes Out Against Unionization for His Staff — Here's His Reasoning

BuzzFeed founder and CEO Jonah Peretti said during a staff meeting Friday that he didn't think a "union is right" for his employees.

Peretti, who has described himself as "fiscally liberal," said that he believes unions work in certain situations, but wouldn't be a good fit for BuzzFeed.

"I think unions have had a positive impact on a lot of places, like if you’re working on an assembly line, and if you’re negotiating with management it can make a huge difference, particularly when labor is more replaceable. And I think I don’t think a union is right for BuzzFeed for two reasons," Peretti said, according a transcript of his remarks posted on BuzzFeed.

Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Vanity Fair

"One, I think the way we pattern BuzzFeed is after companies like Google and Facebook, and the tech startups are very, very competitive for talent," he continued. "They’re all trying to get the very best talent. That’s how I see BuzzFeed as well. We need to provide amazing benefits, we need to provide as much incentive for people to pick BuzzFeed over any other company."

[sharequote align="right"]"In general, I don’t think it’s the right idea for us."[/sharequote]

"A lot of the best new-economy companies are environments where there’s an alliance between managers and employees. People have shared goals. Benefits and perks and compensation are very competitive, and I feel like that’s the kind of market we’re in," Peretti added. "A lot of times when you look at companies that have unionized, the relationship is very different. The relationship is much more adversarial, and you have lawyers negotiating for comp and looking at comparable companies and trying to keep compensation matched with other companies."

The BuzzFeed CEO concluded contending that he doesn't think a union would be "very good for employees" at his growing media company.

"In general, I don’t think it’s the right idea for us. The only thing about BuzzFeed is that we’re global, most unions are national," he said. "We have people who move between different roles and in general unions do a lot of defining clearly what individual roles, and what the job function is. So for a flexible, dynamic company, it isn’t something I think would be great for the company.”

Employees at several new-media startups have voted to unionize in the past few months. Vice Media's digital editorial staff voted to unionize earlier this month, following similar moves form Gawker Media and Salon.

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