Mark Longaker, operations chair of the Oxford University Press USA Guild (OUP USA Guild), and Barbara Camens, general counsel to The NewsGuild-CWA, joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast to discuss the September 2026 arbitration award finding that Oxford University Press violated its collective bargaining agreement when it laid off 13 union workers just over two weeks after ratifying its first contract and transferred their work to the UK.
The union, certified in 2021, ratified its first contract in 2024 and negotiated strong work-protection language specifically because offshoring concerns were what sparked the organizing drive from the beginning. Despite the clear contract language and the employer’s refusal to respond to information requests, Camens and the Guild built a documented case, prevailed in a three-day New York arbitration hearing, and received the award in September. Remedy discussions are ongoing.
Camens also revealed that the NewsGuild is pursuing an arbitration hearing against the Associated Press over the AP’s announcement of a global production center in India and the layoff of dozens of union-represented workers.
Oxford University Press is one of the oldest publishing houses in the world, tracing its history to 1478 or 1586, depending on how the founding is counted. It is a department of Oxford University, technically a not-for-profit, and its catalog spans virtually every academic field. It has even published two books by labor organizer Jane McAlevey.
The U.S. workers who organized the Oxford University Press USA Guild, beginning around 2019, did so out of concern that work was moving out of their bargaining unit and that it would continue to do so in the future. The union was certified in 2021. During bargaining, NLRB unfair labor practice charges were filed because the employer was moving work outside the bargaining unit while contract negotiations were ongoing. The NLRB found merit in those charges. The parties ultimately reached a first contract in 2024 that included strong work-protection language negotiated specifically to address the risk of offshoring.
Just over two weeks after the contract was ratified, Oxford University Press announced layoffs affecting 13 workers. The work was transferred to the UK. The announcement came after OUP reported $50 million in profits.
The 13 workers who were laid off were primarily designers — cover designers, text designers and page designers who produce the physical and digital appearance of Oxford's academic books — alongside technology workers who support the publishing process and ensure that publishing standards are maintained. Many were longtime employees with deep institutional knowledge. Longaker described them as some of the most highly skilled people in the bargaining unit.
The employer claimed the layoffs reflected a lack of work, not a transfer of work, and that operations were simply being consolidated and streamlined. The employer refused to respond to the guild's requests for information to evaluate that claim.
Camens described what the guild had to do as “following the breadcrumbs.” Without cooperation from the employer, the team built its case by interviewing the laid-off workers about exactly what they had been doing, speaking with current employees across and creating a paper trail that documented where the work actually went.
They found that the bargaining unit’s historical work had been transferred to the UK office of Oxford University Press. When the UK staff became overloaded by the increased work, additional work was pushed to independent contractors and freelancers. The guild research made the case that the transfer was a deliberate movement of protected work out of the bargaining unit.
The guild filed a grievance, proceeded to arbitration and presented the case over three days in New York. In September 2026, the arbitrator ruled that Oxford University Press had violated the clear language of the collective bargaining agreement that protected the guild's work jurisdiction from offshoring.
Camens explained how work protection has been built into The NewsGuild’s collective bargaining program for decades. The guild calls it Article 1 work protection because it considers this protection foundational to every contract it negotiates — more important than any other provision.
New technology and new processes should not change guild work, they argue. If the function is the same function that guild members have always performed, the work belongs to the guild. The contract language the guild negotiates allows for some sharing of work in global operations, but draws a hard line that domestic jobs and domestic work cannot be transferred around the world to avoid union standards.
The technology that makes offshoring so tempting for employers is the same technology that makes the contract language so essential. Content can now be quickly transferred to workers anywhere in the world. Academic book design, news production and digital publishing do not require a physical proximity to a U.S. office. Without contract language that explicitly protects the work jurisdiction, employers can and do move work with very little friction.
Remedy discussions between the guild and Oxford University Press are ongoing. Most of the 13 laid-off workers have moved on, and reinstatement is not the primary ask. The primary objective is to return the work to the guild, restoring 13 positions to the bargaining unit. Longaker said reinstatement remains a possibility, depending on what the parties work out, but winning back the 13 jobs in any form is the goal.
Camens then disclosed the next front. The Associated Press, a global news organization, recently announced it is opening a global production center in India and is in the process of laying off dozens of workers represented by the News Media Guild. The AP's position is that centralizing production in India will streamline operations and better serve the news function. The guild's position is that the AP's work protection language says otherwise. The guild plans to take the AP to arbitration. Camens said the Oxford ruling has been amplified as widely as possible, and she hopes the AP is listening.
Longaker’s offered a message to any workers going through a similar situation. Organize with a union to get a seat at the table, fight for work-protection language in the contract, and use the grievance and arbitration mechanism to enforce it. The most frustrating part of the situation with Oxford University Press was watching an employer treat its ratified contract as an annoyance to be ignored, he said. The arbitration win is the answer to that posture.
Camens added that workers need to understand work preservation as an economic issue equal in importance to wages and healthcare. The guild workers recognized that, during their organizing drive and bargaining. Having the offshoring issue included in the contract language produced the win.
More information on the Oxford University Press USA Guild is available at oxfordpressunion.org.
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