The Writers Guild of America East responded Friday morning to Vox Media’s Thursday sale of popular gaming publication Polygon to Screen Rant owner Valnet, slamming the “short-sighted” layoffs of over 20 staffers that followed.
“With only a month left until the current union contract expires at Vox Media, the Company yesterday announced it sold Polygon and laid off the bargaining unit at the site,” the WGA’s statement read. “It is hard to fathom management’s commitment to its workers and its readers when this marks the fifth round of layoffs in just the last six months.”
As the WGA’s statement notes, Vox Media employees have been hit by multiple rounds of layoffs in recent months. In January, at least 10 employees of the media company lost their jobs, including multiple director-level figures. That round of layoffs was preceded by several others in January and late 2024 that resulted in the downsizing of editorial staff at Vox-owned outlets like Thrillist, Vox.com, Eater and PopSugar.
Among the Polygon employees that were laid off Thursday were Polygon co-founder and former editor-in-chief Chris Plante, correspondent Michael McWhertor and Senior Reporter Nicole Carpenter. Kotaku was the first outlet to report about Polygon’s sale and layoffs on Thursday.
The Vox Media Union was officially recognized by its parent company in January 2018 with help from the WGA East. Vox’s Polygon sale comes not just one month ahead of the expiration of the company’s current union contract, but after three months of negotiations in which the WGA says Vox has “thus far rejected our economic proposals, refused to offer meaningful counter proposals and, frankly, shown a lack of interest in reaching anything close to an acceptable deal.”
“Vox Media touts its progressive values and its ‘responsibility to build a better media industry’ by amplifying historically excluded voices, but the only thing clear at the moment is that Vox Media and its CEO Jim Bankoff have taken extreme actions to weaken the bargaining unit,” the WGA’s statement continued.
“The union will not be intimidated by management’s short-sighted choice to fire workers, their self-defeating decision to gut Polygon or their refusal to take these negotiations seriously,” the guild added. “We demand the company come to the table prepared to negotiate in good faith and with intentions to support the very workers who make Vox Media a successful and lucrative business.”
The Vox Media Union asserts that it remains ready to fight for a contract that includes “reasonable economic gains, critical AI protections, much-needed layoff protections and increases in severance, protections from rising healthcare costs, a single bargaining unit that includes [Vox-owned outlet] The Dodo, strong successorship language and additional common-sense workplace protections.”
Valnet, the digital media company that now owns Polygon, along with Screen Rant, Collider, CBR and MovieWeb, is currently suing TheWrap for $64.5 million in damages over an article published in March detailing its owner’s past ties to porn sites. The investigative piece also cites an ongoing lawsuit against Valnet by a former freelancer accusing the company of failing to pay minimum wage and provide overtime pay, meal breaks, rest breaks and reimburse business expenses.
The article additionally cites claims from 15 current and former Valnet contributors who told TheWrap that the media company pushes its workers to adhere to “sweatshop-level” conditions while routinely paying low rates, replacing employees with unprotected contractors and blacklisting any contributors who complain or question Valnet’s practices.
