Washingtonian Staff Revolts After CEO Seems to Threaten Their Jobs if They Don’t Return to Office

Rudy TakalaMay 7th, 2021, 10:25 am
 

Cathy Merrill

Members of the Washingtonian’s editorial staff staged a protest on Friday after the publication’s CEO penned an op-ed that many saw as threatening employees with measures that included stripping them of their benefits if they did not return to work in the office.

“Like many of my fellow small-business owners, I am excited about the prospect of returning to in-person work but am struggling with when and how to safely reopen our office,” CEO Cathy Merrill wrote in a Thursday op-ed for The Washington Post, before addressing her own employees directly. “But also like my peers, I am concerned about the unfortunately common office worker who wants to continue working at home and just go into the office on occasion.”

Merrill then expounded on the complexities of remote work before suggesting she would turn employees who didn’t want to return to her office on a regular basis into independent contractors — a highly contentious move that would strip employees of insurance benefits and potentially pose significant legal challenges.

While some employees might like to continue to work from home and pop in only when necessary, that presents executives with a tempting economic option the employees might not like. I estimate that about 20 percent of every office job is outside one’s core responsibilities — “extra.” It involves helping a colleague, mentoring more junior people, celebrating someone’s birthday — things that drive office culture. If the employee is rarely around to participate in those extras, management has a strong incentive to change their status to “contractor.” Instead of receiving a set salary, contractors are paid only for the work they do, either hourly or by appropriate output metrics. That would also mean not having to pay for health care, a 401(k) match and our share of FICA and Medicare taxes — benefits that in my company’s case add up roughly to an extra 15 percent of compensation. Not to mention the potential savings of reduced office space and extras such as bonuses and parking fees.

The op-ed provoked staffers into protest on Friday. Numerous Washingtonian employees detailed the reason in a cut-and-paste message on Twitter, writing, “As members of the Washingtonian editorial staff, we want our CEO to understand the risks of not valuing our labor. We are dismayed by Cathy Merrill’s public threat to our livelihoods. We will not be publishing today.”

Numerous reporters for other outlets expressed similar dismay, with New York Times reporter Sopan Deb calling the op-ed “particularly awful.”

The controversy was enough to prompt the Washington Post to change the headline on the column, which originally underscored the idea that Merrill was writing to address her own employees. “As a CEO, I want my employees to understand the risks of not returning to work in the office,” the original headline said. As of Friday, it changed to state, “As a CEO, I worry about the erosion of office culture with more remote work.”

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