MTV News Staffers Cite Trump in Seeking to Unionize

According to the Writers Guild of America, East, the editorial staff of MTV News plans to unionize with WGAE, citing having to cover the Donald Trump administration as part of the reason.

WGAE cited a letter from the MTV News Unionizing Committee that said, in part: "Under the new Trump administration, we are acutely aware of how necessary our constitutional rights are, and how much we need legal protection." "There has never been a more critically important time in our lives to have the protections of a union, especially for those of us in media," the committee wrote, according to WGAE. "And there’s never been a more necessary time for MTV News to talk about music, pop culture, and politics with the teenagers of America. We need to do more than just pay our respects to the past. We need a seat at the table so that we can be the future of MTV News. Because we deeply believe in the mission of MTV News and in the rights of the editors, writers, critics, reporters, producers, and correspondents who make up our team, the majority of us have collectively decided to organize a union with the Writers Guild of America, East."