n+1 has just made available on its website the excellent symposium on labor and magazines from its Winter 2015 issue. The series includes articles by current or former employees of the New Yorker, Harper’s, Dissent, and n+1, who write about the challenges of organizing workers in a changing publishing industry. Here’s Gemma Sieff on Harper’s:
It was a climate of fear for a bunch of delicate orchids. There were high-level departures and abrupt promotions, including my own to Reviews editor, a dream job I pounced on and loved. To my credit or discredit, I was somewhat oblivious to the anxious gloom that pervaded the office. We had an interim editor, Ellen Rosenbush, a veteran of the magazine who’d been managing editor for two decades. A new editor was Rick’s bailiwick, and I couldn’t see the point in worrying about what might never happen.
Check out the symposium here.