Because my employment conditions and the initiative I took to address them were core to the union effort in 2019, I am an original source on TYT Union's origins. Proof of my claims is available on my Substack, Bald On The Inside, and in the sources below.
Workers at The Young Turks — a media company branded the Home of Progressives that has been a mainstay of ostensibly progressive and lefty news, commentary and politics since the earliest days of YouTube, earning tens of millions of subscribers and tens of billions of views across its internet and cable distribution platforms — first sought help from the International Alliance of Theatrical & Stage Employees union (IATSE) in the spring of 2018. A round of layoffs that summer intimidated workers and TYT Union went cold.
A year later in the spring of 2019 the effort unfroze w/ renewed vigor largely due to the working conditions I experienced when I came back to work for TYT in late 2018 as a full-time video editor.
My co-workers shared my belief that full-time video editing should include health insurance, paid days off, bonus and other benefits — the same benefits they received for doing the same job. Our boss, Cenk Uygur, held a different view and he deployed multiple job classifications to ensure his interests were met.
I had three options: 1) Shut up and take it 2) Quit 3) Unionize my workplace
So I chose option three.
I plotted.
Out of frustration, a desire to see a doctor and a heartfelt belief in the principles TYT's audience thinks they support — the same principles that motivated me to sell my business and move across the country to work for The Young Turks in 2013 after years as a paying member — I took initiative to intentionally thaw the union effort I'd heard about. Something had to be done.
I wanted fairness and I needed the stress to end.
By November of 2019, we were several months deep into our effort. Fearing retaliation, we kept communication off company equipment and were careful about operational security. We made explicit our seriousness; that our conversations were more than just blowing off steam and decided to take the next step so we dug up those old emails and invited IATSE's help yet again. They were glad to hear back from TYT crew and we promptly scheduled our first in-person meeting at my apartment here in Los Angeles. I had just enough chairs but I couldn't afford the good coffee cake.
Shortly after, to everyone's surprise but no one's shock, Cenk Uygur became a politician, launching his bid for the United States House of Representatives in California's 25th district via special election to replace Katie Hill against establishment favorite Christy Smith. It was to be held on March 3rd, 2020. (results)
When the union came forward in February of 2020, Cenk refused voluntary recognition and conducted an aggressive 2-month union-busting campaign described as 'surprisingly brutal' by Alex Thompson in Politico. In addition to a litany of classic union-busting tactics, Cenk's effort to deny his workers their rights included the unusual tactic of publicly smearing unionizing workers with a provably false narrative that Team Cenk's political foes originated the union in order to harm his run for Congress. You read that right.
With Ana Kasparian's help, Cenk Uygur used his media company to attack his own workers as part of a desperate gambit to protect his political ambitions and keep a dark secret dark.
The official company story was, and remains, that outsiders unionized TYT to hurt Cenk.
This is a lie.
"Our trademark is honesty."
— Cenk Uygur, May 30th, 2018
The Young Turks: The World's Largest Online News Show
The truth was clear to me as I had lived the story they were lying about but I watched with horror as the audience I helped build ingested the conspiracy at face value and joined in on spreading the smear. Some saw through it but many didn't. The smokescreen worked.
It was a fog of poison. Inside, unionizing workers still did their jobs. They toiled dutifully, fulfilling their roles as media professionals to make TYT's on-air talent look and sound amazing while outside, The Young Turks' highest profile figures, Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, buttressed by the loud silence of every TYT host besides Francesca Fiorentini, impugned the unionizing workers' intelligence and integrity, generating ire, suspicion and judgment from their trusting audience and orbiters. This salted the wound of an already intense workplace pressurized by active union-busting, kicked off the day the union came forward, Feb 12th, with a captive audience meeting at which Cenk threw papers and threatened a worker.
I'm so, so sorry my friends had to endure that.
Union-busting is the intentional infliction of material and psychological harm. That's why CEOs use it. It's only effective because it hurts people.
Pain is leverage.
Of couuuurse, Cenk's priority was Cenk. As he wrote in his union-busting emails to workers, his concern was for his reputation and about being outed as "a boss who treats his employees poorly."
By assigning 'The Establishment' as the union's originator, rooted on the fact that IATSE had endorsed Smith in the race, Cenk was able to justify the union-busting and avoid being asked 'why did your workers unionize?' (and what the answers to that question would reveal about his character) It didn't have to be precise, or even logical, it merely had to create a cloud of confusion.
It was so effective that even in 2025 the popular Twitch streamer and top left-wing political commentator, Hasan Piker aka Cenk Uygur's Nephew, whose stratospheric success was made possible by the time, talent and labor of TYT workers including many in the nascent TYT Union, after admitting he "100%" needed a union for his own dire working conditions at TYT, spread a completely incorrect narrative about what happened, stating "They actually did unionize the producers," on Teamster President Sean O'Brien's podcast, Better Bad Ideas. Literally impossible — IATSE does not represent producers, only production and post-production workers in the entertainment and media industries. Unwittingly, he furthered his uncle's mission of erasing the union workers' story and replacing it with a non-truth. Any ole non-truth would do. This was yet another win for the famous, rich, powerful union-buster. It speaks to the injustice "Tell The Truth, Cenk" corrects and affirms why this film must be made.
Considering the novel and intense nature of an atypical high-profile political campaign that had been on the receiving end of unfair treatment from mainstream outlets, some paranoia from Team Cenk was understandable, justified even. Fog of war and what not. They were indeed subject to the same pushback mainstream Democrats marshal against progressive candidates, exemplified by then-Presidential contender Bernie Sanders endorsing & un-endorsing Cenk within 24 hours due to a firestorm fueled by Cenk's deep and documented sexism.
However, as journalists, Cenk & Ana had an ethical responsibility to confirm the details of TYT Union's origins before going public. Not all stories are confirmable but very few are this confirmable. Original sources were feet away. I was a DM away. (I'd been laid off in early January.)
It was not a mistake. It was motivated bossery.
Cenk couldn't let his dark secret get out and Ana's loyalty to her mentor was enlisted in service to the cause.
Had it been an honest mistake, a correction would have been issued and they wouldn't have covered it up. Cenk wouldn't still be lying about what happened, both on whether he's a union-buster and, as recently as January 2025, about why workers unionized, demonstrating a remarkable commitment to the smokescreen. He even accused unionizing workers of bullying other workers. Another intentional and malicious smear.
Shameful.
They did no fact-checking. There has been no retraction. There has been no apology.
There has been no truth, thus the title of the film:
Tell The Truth, Cenk.
"But maybe I am Michael Scott and I thought we were friends and family but you never saw it that way. I'm hoping that isn't the case, that some folks got you to believe that being adversarial with 'management' is the right thing to do."
— Cenk Uygur via email to unionizing workers
After seven months classified as "independent contractor," paid less per hour than editors who received benefits, management answered my request for redress by changing my classification to "part-time." Still worked 40-hr weeks, still no benefits. The only change was a bigger dose of disrespect.
It felt like they were stealing from me.
I was fed up. I was tired. I was stressed. I was alone. I was weak.
I had no leverage by myself.
Anger became action. The thaw began.
The plot was no more complicated than talking quietly to people I trusted with whom I shared material interests and head-shaking dismay at the stark difference between TYT's on- and off-camera principles. It took no persuasion. Our boss's employment practices had done that.
This exercise of agency and the nourishing presence of solidarity it garnered was my one source of hope during a difficult time in my life. I needed the work. I needed the safety steady income affords a brain like mine. I'd been reeling from deepening mental and emotional struggles I'd grappled with since infancy that I'd later learn were related to unidentified autism and was grateful for a job I was good at with people I liked. Even at $21.63/hr, it was better than deliveries.
My aims weren't mighty. They weren't even high. I had no ambition to buy a place, travel or save for retirement. Work got everything. What was left went to battling the tigers in my head. Unionizing was how I could cut the stress so I could stay sane enough to keep being a very good video editor for the boss who clearly couldn't give two millionaire shits if I lived or died.
I simply wanted to be elevated to the same disrespect everyone else received.
Conversation planted the seed. Collective bargaining gave us leverage. Solidarity gave us strength. A union rose from the soil.
By erasing our weakness, we erased our boss's strength. This is the great truth the bosses fear you'll learn: The source of their power is your weakness.
Now, I am exercising my agency again (plus my abundant video editing and storytelling skills) to right this ongoing injustice.
The workers of TYT who stood together in solidarity for better working conditions and the hope of dignity will not have their story erased and replaced with a lie. I do not consent.
All that's needed for justice is the truth Cenk tried to hide.
But I can't do it alone. Just as at TYT Cenk was stronger than me but he wasn't stronger than the union, his fame, wealth, connections and power will mean nothing if you stand with me.
My fumes are running out, my spirit is weary and I'm beyond eager to be on the other side of this long strange quest.
I need your help.
Leave the editing to me but please contribute if you're able.
It's time we get the good coffee cake.
In solidarity with the workers of Earth,
-Hank Thompson
