shaelit:
We interrupt this lovely readalong for more HarperCollins union news.
Namely, the union is on strike. HarperCollins, the second largest publishing house in the United States, has made record profits (in the billions) but refuses to pay its employees a living wage or negotiate in good faith. Unlike the one-day strike earlier this year, this will be an open-ended strike, to last until a fair, good-faith contract is agreed upon.
I cannot overstate the implications here. HarperCollins is a 200-year-old behemoth with over 120 imprints, owned by billionaire Rupert Murdoch. You have reads books from this company, I guarantee it. You have enjoyed movies and TV shows spawned by this company. The workers striking at the blood and sweat responsible for launching those properties you love. And as Harper goes, so goes the rest of the industry. If we raise the living standards for one, so the pressure increases on other companies to raise it for all.
The Harper Union need your support. They have a full thread here, but here’s the gist of what they’re asking:
EVERYONE:
- Donate to the strike fund if you can
- Politely email Harper’s HR (peopleteam@harpercollins.com) and the CEO (brian.murray@harpercollins.com) to express your support for the strike and the union.
- Boost their message on social media and among your social circles (here are some assets you can use to do that)
- If you are in the NY metro area, come join the picket line at 195 Broadway in Manhattan!
BLOGGERS/REVIEWERS/BOOKSTAGRAMMERS/BOOKTOKERS:
- If possible, please hold all reviews of Harper titles until the strike is over. (And I would add, if you feel comfortable doing so, tell Harper why.)
FREELANCERS/INDUSTRY HOPEFULS:
- Don’t be a scab. Don’t take new freelance projects or temporary positions while the strike is ongoing.
BOOKSTORES/BOOKSELLERS:
- Share the “I Stand With” graphic
- Print and distribute the union bookmark at your store
AUTHORS/AGENTS:
- Do not submit or sign new contracts to Harper until the union’s own contract is finalized.
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Please note they are not asking for a boycott on Harper titles. A boycott would harm the authors, who have nothing to do with this, so the union is explicitly requesting no boycott.
Also, please do not @ Harper social accounts to yell at them. Direct all feedback to that peopleteam email. The majority of folks watching those accounts are out on the picket line anyways, and their managers have already been warned that, as non-union members, they risk termination if voice any public support for the strike.
For more info, check out the union’s accounts on Twitter and Instagram. I also recommend this Twitter thread for some hard facts and figures.
Want something you can share on TikTok? Check out Carmen’s video here.
Reblogging with some additional information in answer to notes, replies, and comments left on the original post, This addition is current as of November 11, 2022. (The post above is from November 10, 2022.)
- The union’s official Venmo is @HCPSolidarityFund, but I’m trying to get a current, official statement from them to link to here, so you don’t have to take my word for it.
- The Harper union is part of the UAW Local 2110. Their website is here. The union’s press release announcing the strike can be found here.
“I want to email but I don’t know what to say.”
Templates are tricky. If you copy-paste my words, HC can dismiss it as spam. Here’s what I would recommend trying:
- a greeting (”To whom it may concern” or “Dear HarperCollins” or just “Hi” works)
- introduce yourself in relation to who you are to them (a regular customer of their titles? a member of a Harper-related fandom? a concerned parent/teacher/librarian? an author? a bookseller? a potential future employee?)
- a statement of support (”I am writing in support of the ongoing strike because…”)
- an explicit notation on why they should care (should be framed in terms of Harper’s reputation, Harper’s clout, and/or Harper’s finances. How can YOU affect THEIR bottom line?)
- a line on what actions you wish to see them take
- your name
Voila. That’s like six sentences, tops. If you’d like, add in how you heard about the strike to give and how you plan to share the news even further to give a sense of scale. (see: the impact on Harper’s reputation.)
You can do it. I believe in you.
A brand/book/author you care about is definitely going to be affected
Here is a very incomplete list of just SOME of the books, brands, and authors published by HarperCollins:
Warrior Cats. Series of Unfortunate Events. Bridgerton. Wicked. Chronicles of Narnia. Lord of the Rings and the entire Tolkien backlist. Agatha Christie. Dorothy Sayers. E.B. White (his adult stuff and Charlotte’s Web, Trumpet of the Swan, Stuart Little). School for Good and Evil. Amelia Bedelia. Goodnight Moon. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Harold and the Purple Crayon. Frog and Toad. Master and Commander. The Princess Diaries. The Queen’s Thief Series. Red Queen. The Hate U Give. Dumplin. The One and Only Ivan. New Kid. Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. They Both Die at the End. Ella Enchanted. Beverly Cleary. Wayside School. Bridge to Terabithia. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Where the Wild Things Are and other titles by Maurice Sendak. Where the Sidewalk Ends and other titles by Shel Silverstein. All of the I Can Read books. Bel Canto. American Gods (and a bunch of other stuff by Neil Gaiman, incl. Coraline and Stardust.) All of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books. Pretty Little Liars. To Kill a Mockingbird. The Little Bear books. The Divergent series. Little House on the Prairie. The Abhorsen books. Howl’s Moving Castle and Diana Wynne Jones’s other books. Splat the Cat. Flat Stanley. Babel by R.F. Kuang. Song of Achilles. Anthony Bourdain’s books. Barbara Kingsolver. Anthony Horowitz. EVERYTHING under the Harlequin and Avon imprints. EVERYTHING under Zondervan and Thomas Nelson. The Little Prince. Life of Pi. Ursula Le Guin. Virginia Woolf. The Princess Bride. The Handmaid’s Tale. Fancy Nancy. Zora Neale Hurston. Neal Stephenson. Becky Chambers. Clive Barker. Michael Crichton. Sarah Plain and Tall. R.A. Salvatore. Mitch Albom. Aldous Huxley. Anne Hillerman. Michael Chabon. FGTeeV.
200 years of history. 200 years of gobbling up other companies, other imprints.
You. Are. Affected.
This strike is not anti-Harper/anti-tradpub
Listen, I get it. Some of y’all have some rightful bones to pick with HarperCollins and/or traditional publishing. But the brave people forgoing their livelihood indefinitely in order to demand livable wages, increased diversity in the workplace, and union protections—demands that will affect our entire industry—ARE HarperCollins, far more than the C-Suite execs they’re fighting against. It is the latter group, the VPs and executives who roll up the ladder after themselves, who are the barrier here, not HarperCollins as embodied by the stressed out and in debt subrights coordinator marching on the sidewalk.
I agree, stick it to The Man, especially when that man is Rupert Murdoch, but this isn’t about “taking Harper down a peg” or “burning tradpub to the ground.” This is about bettering working conditions and providing a more equitable, sustainable environment for hundreds of passionate, dedicated people and thereby further opening the door for those who come after them.
This strike highlights issues that are endemic to publishing as a whole
Publishing is white. Publishing is rich. Publishing is layer upon layer of privilege and power and invisible hurdles like you wouldn’t believe.
The union is asking for three things:
- livable wages
- an increased commitment to diversity
- better union protections
All three are intertwined. Until the 2020 protests, standard entry level salaries were at $35k, which is below the poverty level for NYC (where employees are required to live.) Harper raised their base salaries after the protests, after a lot of public lip service to diversity, and after literally EVERY other competitor raised their salaries first. Current entry level salaries at Harper are $45k, which is still less than a year’s rent in New York. (Food? Electricity? Who needs it!) Employees are expected to take on additional jobs to survive. That’s standard. Employees are also expected to work overtime without pay. Again, this is standard across the industry, not just at Harper.
The people who survive are people with wealth, people with privilege, or people who make it only so far and then burn out spectacularly. The churn in this industry is unreal. This also leads in to Harper’s lip service to diversity in the workplace. BIPOC folks, disabled folks, folks without significant financial support, even once they managed to get through the door, retention is abysmal. Again, standard across publishing.
Harper has done a heck of a job at trying to gut the union. The amount of union busting even in “normal times” was unreal. And yet Harper remains the only US publisher in “the Big Four” with a union.
If the union can pull off a win here, raised salaries will apply pressure for their competitors to follow suit. Same for tangible, practical, enforced commitments to diversity. And if the union wins, more may appear in other houses, keeping the cycle of change rolling forward. And this is not limited to the United States. We are an interconnected global world. May actions here inspire further actions abroad.
So again, thank you all for your support. If you have specific questions and want to make sure I see, send an ask or DM.
Let’s get crap done.
The Harper Union is still on strike. Harper’s HR, which publicly tried to position themselves as “bargaining in good faith” has yet to even reach out to the union.
It’s been fifteen days without even an attempt at a deal, and Harper has begun hiring scabs.
Now is the time for more pressure, not less.
