Following the recent purchase of Gothamist by DNAinfo, staff at the two organizations decided to unionize under the Writers Guild of America East. The employees and editors are pushing for fair workplace policies concerning compensation, benefits, termination, severance, and editorial standards. Following their merger, about a quarter of the editorial staff was let go. Dan Swartz, DNAinfo’s chief operating officer, responded to the unionization effort by mentioning the possibility that the company, which has lost money since its beginning eight years ago, could choose to close the site as a result of increased expenses.
See "Journalists at Gothamist and DNAinfo Agree to Join Labor Union", Eli Rosenberg, The New York Times, April 13, 2017