This post was written by Adam Whitley, a Daily Kos employee and a steward in the Daily Kos Guild.
I started at Daily Kos just a year ago as the new Senior Frontend Engineer. I’m the guy who has to figure out how to make the site look good on a 50” curved, superwide, 8k monitor and on a flip phone that someone bought from Cingulair in 2001 that’s somehow still working. I’m responsible for all those cool new features you’ve been seeing pop up on the site. (The things you don’t like were made by someone else.)
I’ve been working in tech for about 15 years now and the team I’m on is the smartest, kindest, most thoughtful, and most creative group of people I’ve had the pleasure to work with. More than that, the work I’m doing has a real-world impact. In the short time I’ve been here, I’ve seen the deep roots of Daily Kos work to help secure a historic result in the 2022 midterms.
RELATED STORY: Daily Kos Guild and Daily Kos Management agree on terms of a voluntary buyout package
It wasn’t always like that. A decade ago, I was working in DC building websites and software for members of Congress—offices ranging from Maxine Waters, Ted Lieu, and Hakeem Jeffries to Michelle Bachmann, Paul Ryan, and John Boehner (right?!?). That resulted in high highs and low lows. Some days, I’d be happily working with Jared Polis’ office to set up a page on their site with LGBTQ+ resources; other days I’d be helping Steve King’s office send out a newsletter about how Obama was born on Mars or whatever. Those were the times that I despaired about how even if I were to become the best software engineer in the world, the net effect I would have would still be negative.
I wanted something better.
It took some searching and a lot of other jobs, but I finally found something better here. I remember reading the Daily Kos as a college student (dropout) during the Bush years when I was finding my political identity so the prospect of working here was exactly what I was always looking for. I love the fact that everything I do at my job is in some small way helping push for a better future for my kids’ generation.
This push happens because of labor. The labor of every worker at the Daily Kos is what causes the results you see. Every dollar raised. Every signature. Every candidate elected. It is your free labor as a Community member that makes this possible. You read and recommend and comment and share and interact and all that time you spend with us helps us push a little further. It’s my hope that in return for your labor, we’re providing you with news, community, entertainment, and hopefully a little joy in some dark times.
As a tech worker, I’m sick to death of the fantasy that one person is—or even a few people are—responsible for innovation. Innovation only happens when people labor in community toward a common goal. These people are vitally important. No one is an interchangeable cog. No one is superfluous. We’re seeing this play out in real-time as Elon Musk fires half the workers at Twitter, breaks up the community, and tries to play the lone genius. He, like so many other managers, forgets where the power lies.
I joined the Daily Kos Guild (DKG) and became the Engineering Team Steward soon after getting hired. I was glad to hear that Daily Kos Management (DKM) voluntarily recognized the Guild and was hopeful we could become a model of what a progressive workplace could look like. Imagine my disappointment when, instead of bargaining over ways to live our politics out in the way we work, we’ve been stuck going back and forth with seemingly unprepared managers just trying to start negotiations.
According to DKM, the financial red flags started showing a year ago. They started discussing layoffs in September—and never mentioned any of this during our bargaining sessions. Rather than come to the DKG first so we could mitigate the harm caused by our decreasing revenue, DKM continued business as usual: approving conference expenditures, hiring new employees, and spending on new internal management software. Now, when we propose cost-saving measures, they are dismissed as “kicking the can down the road” because we have to account for not just this year’s shortfall, but last year’s as well.
DKM initially announced their intent to lay off 25% of the unionized workforce. The Guild has succeeded in negotiating for a voluntary buyout option, first, and then the possibility of implementing other cost-saving measures short of layoffs. We appreciate these hard-won gains. Even if the engineering department stays intact, losing the people responsible for the Community and content of the site could have devastating effects on the future of Daily Kos.
Who cares how great the site looks and functions if it’s just full of reposted AP articles? A move like that could be the beginning of the end of the Daily Kos.
The DKG is not going to just let that happen. I’m not going to just let that happen. I finally found something better and I’m not going to give up on it.
How to Support the Daily Kos Guild:
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DKG represents 54 Daily Kos staff members and another 6 "disputed" positions, accounting for 68% of Daily Kos' total workforce. DKG is a Pacific Media Workers Guild member, a local of the NewsGuild/Communication Workers of America, and was certified as the bargaining unit of represented staff in 2022.
As a member of The NewsGuild/Communication Workers of America, we move in solidarity with all our union colleagues across the country and the larger worker rights movement.