We want NPR's management to support a fair deal with its staffers in SAG-AFTRA. We want equal pay for equal work. We want fair benefits, fair and competitive pay for the work they produce, and contract protections.

We need your help to tell the management of NPR that they should value the people who make NPR.

Sign this petition to show that you stand with NPR.

UPDATE, JULY 16: We have reached a tentative agreement with NPR management. We will update this petition further once we know more about the ratification of the deal. We thank every one of you for your support of our work and in spreading the word of our fight. 

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Learn more about our fight at WeMakeNPR.org. Learn more about how else you can support our cause at our action page. Our current contract expired at the end of June, and we've been extending it as we negotiate.

THE FUTURE OF NPR IS AT STAKE

We’ve been making NPR for decades. Every day, we come together to produce journalism that makes a difference at home and abroad. Journalism that informs our loyal audience, journalism that serves the mission we adhere to daily.

Many NPR staffers have been represented by SAG-AFTRA (and its predecessor union) since 1976. Today, NPR’s news and music programs are available everywhere our audience needs us. We take pride in keeping our audience informed. NPR is better because of its people, and because of its relationship with our union.

Our members produce quality investigative journalism that exposes corruption and changes lives, radio stories that cause driveway moments, podcasts like Pop Culture Happy Hour, Code Switch and the NPR Politics Podcast that make our audience laugh and think, Tiny Desk Concerts that bring both your favorite and your next favorite musicians closer to you, heart-wrenching photos and video, arts coverage from the stage to the screen in your hands, and so much more.

Collective bargaining and union representation have helped make NPR a good place to work with pay and benefits that attract and keep informed, accurate, and innovative journalists. It’s a diverse workforce in terms of age, race and ethnicity, class, training, education, and most importantly, experience. 

Among the many ideals we share: NPR’s mission and the commitment to a fair workplace.

LATEST CONTRACT PROPOSAL THREATENS NPR MISSION

The management of NPR and their latest contract proposal seeks to tear apart fundamental workplace rights and benefits SAG-AFTRA members fought hard to establish. It threatens the core of NPR’s mission by devaluing the work of the people who have helped bring record audiences across NPR’s platforms, as is frequently touted by the same executives.

Today, we have seen double-digit growth across all platforms, as well as a budget surplus. This is in spite of the executive ranks who have failed to secure the funding necessary to continue to allow NPR as a whole to innovate and grow.

SOLIDARITY IS OUR STRENGTH

We have learned in 41 years of collective bargaining that our contract gives us a framework of benefits and protections that are predictable for management, provide the ability to support a personal life and family, and prevent the kinds of abuses that budget pressures, incompetence or misplaced priorities can engender. This should not be broken.

We stand unified and strong because we have a common cause: a fair workplace with equal pay for equal work, fair benefits for all, and a codified structure for resolving disputes. We thank our colleagues both inside and outside of our union who have supported our fight for fairness. They, too, make NPR what it is today, and what it can be in the future with a respected workforce.

ULTIMATELY, WE MADE NPR. WE MAKE NPR. AND WE MAKE NPR FAIR.