Three weeks after ratifying their first Collective Bargaining Agreement, Oxford University Press has notified 13 union employees that they are being laid off. This includes the entire US/North America Design team and the entire US Content Transformation and Standards team.

These layoffs are a direct violation of the new contract--both a provision which protects historic union work from being relocated out of the unit and the layoffs article. We need YOUR support to help pressure the Press to reverse this decision.

OUP management has attempted to justify these layoffs on the highly dubious grounds that the US and UK teams are duplicative and that the amount of work has been reduced, despite these teams’ increasingly heavy workloads. These are the people who design OUP’s award-winning covers and graphics, do complex data work that sustains OUP’s digital products, and so much more. Together, they represent nearly two centuries of service and dedication to OUP’s mission. They are irreplaceable.

We recognize and value the tradition of OUP’s rigorous scholarship, as well as its centrality in academic publishing as the largest university press in the world. We also believe that dedication to the Press’s mission of publishing excellence means holding the company accountable to the standards of dignity for employees and quality over profit.

As OUP USA Guild members, OUP contributors, potential contributors, and users of OUP content, we desire a publication process that is consistent with these values.

Please sign below to join in our demand that OUP immediately reverse this decision and reinstate these roles.

News Media Guild
Local 31222 TNG-CWA
131 W 33rd St, New York, NY 10001