A union contract is negotiated between a group of employees, through their designated representatives, and their employer or employers. Contracts address all represented employees’ terms of employment: wages, benefits, hours, and other working conditions. The contracts under which Editors Guild members work set minimum rates (scale rates) for each covered classification, specify the health and retirement benefits an employer provides its employees, spell out overtime and premium time provisions, and generally insure that employers adhere to established industry standards.

VICE employees will participate in setting the priorities for contract negotiations and will be on the union negotiating team that sits across the table from management. Once our negotiators reach a tentative agreement with management, it goes to everyone in the bargaining unit for a ratification vote. 

We can't definitively say in advance just what will be in the contract for VICE's post-production employees, because the exact outcome of negotiations can't be predicted. We do know, though, that we'll have a democratic process for deciding what we as a group want to achieve and whether the agreement meets our needs. Without contract negotiations, we can only rely on VICE management to make all those decisions unilaterally on our behalf.