Oxford University Press Union

Our Mission.

As employees of Oxford University Press, we are honored to uphold the company’s mission of furthering excellence in research, scholarship, and academic publishing. In agreement with this vision, we believe in publishing educational materials that are accessible for everyone, prioritizing scholarship over profit.

We also believe that these objectives are best achieved through a union, a democratic body comprising those who make OUP’s mission a reality: the employees. A union will boost company morale and improve relations between management and staff by facilitating open conversation. It will also positively impact the quality of work we publish by establishing mutually binding standards for works across the Press. These and other collectively derived goals will be outlined in a contract, ratified by each and every one of the union’s members.

Our priorities are intended to ensure the sustainability of OUP’s legacy and to serve as a model for fairness and stability across the industry. These include:

• Job security in a diverse workplace.
• Dignified salary and benefits that keep pace with cost of living.
• Defined job responsibilities, reporting structures, workload, and company policies. 
• Improved career development and evaluative processes.
• Comprehensive action to resolve issues of sexual harassment and the longstanding, unsustainable rate of attrition.

In the spirit of consensus, solidarity, and integrity, we are forming our union through the NewsGuild–CWA, joining over 24,000 workers at Buzzfeed, the Center for Popular Democracy, the Roosevelt Institute, The Nation, The New York Times, The Associated Press, and nearly 300 more media and nonprofit organizations across North America. As one of the world’s largest academic publishers, with a history dating back to 1478, OUP stands in a privileged position to lead the industry by example, inspiring progress among its peers.