Boston-based meals media empire America’s Check Kitchen, which produces magazines, cookbooks, and TV reveals, laid off about 10 % of its workforce this week and shut down its children-focused cooking vertical ATK Youngsters.
23 workers have been laid off, together with 14 union members and 9 non-union staffers, in line with an Instagram submit by ATKUnited, the media firm’s unionized workforce. The cuts included your entire employees of ATK Youngsters, the corporate’s vertical devoted to youngsters’s cookbooks and kid-friendly recipes, in addition to staffers from the books and advertising and marketing groups.
“We grieve for our affected coworkers,” the submit reads. “Their intelligence, drive, creativity, and years of amassed institutional information might be sorely missed.” The union is at present negotiating with the corporate over severance pay and advantages for affected employees, in line with the submit.
A spokesperson for America’s Check Kitchen acknowledged that the corporate has undergone a “reorganization” that prompted the layoffs. “Whereas we firmly imagine that our selections will re-position the corporate for better success on this ever-changing media atmosphere, it’s a tough time provided that we let go of members of the corporate who contributed to ATK every in their very own approach,” the spokesperson stated in an announcement to Eater.
The cooking and recipe growth powerhouse, which incorporates Cook dinner’s Illustrated journal, Cook dinner’s Nation journal and TV present, and flagship TV present America’s Check Kitchen, in addition to a manufacturing home, has undergone loads of upheaval over the previous 12 months.
Final summer season, America’s Check Kitchen staffers voted to unionize with the Communications Staff of America by Boston-based store CWA Native 1400. The choice was pushed by poor working situations on the firm, together with low pay, excessive employees turnover, and excessive healthcare prices, in line with Boston.com. The union is at present within the midst of bargaining for its first contract.
Lower than two months in the past, Marquee Manufacturers — the proprietor of trend and cooking manufacturers together with BCBG, Motherhood Maternity, Martha Stewart, and Emeril Lagasse — acquired America’s Check Kitchen. Dan Suratt, a former govt at TV streaming machine firm Roku, was named America’s Check Kitchen’s new CEO.
In ATKUnited’s submit, the union famous that when the acquisition was made and Suratt got here on board, workers “have been assured that nothing would change.” The layoffs have been introduced simply over six weeks later.
“It’s disappointing that this new govt management, together with the CEO, has decided to place earnings over individuals,” Don Trementozzi, the president of CWA Native 1400, tells Eater. “That is nothing greater than company greed and never caring concerning the passionate employees who’ve constructed this firm and their earnings. We’re unhappy that it has come to this however we’re going to do every part inside our energy because the union to get these workers one of the best exit packages potential.”
Media workers have been hit exhausting by layoffs not too long ago because the sector struggles with financial uncertainty and lack of promoting income. New England Public Media — an NPR and PBS affiliate in Massachusetts — introduced this week that it’s shedding about 20 % of its employees. NPR itself minimize 10 % of its workforce this week and canceled 4 podcasts in what quantities to NPR’s “greatest wave of layoffs in a long time,” the Washington Publish stories.
Launched in 1992, America’s Check Kitchen is a nationally acknowledged meals media firm identified for its rigorous testing course of and suggestions for recipes and kitchen tools. The corporate is at present based mostly within the Seaport, the place it runs a 15,000-square-foot take a look at kitchen house.
Replace: March 24, 2023, 1:02 p.m.: This text was up to date to incorporate feedback from CWA Native 1400 president Don Trementozzi.
Replace: March 24, 2023, 3:15 p.m.: This text was up to date to incorporate an announcement from an America’s Check Kitchen spokesperson.
