Thank you so much! That is a vastly more informative article. It seems like it's not so much the NYT is opposed to the contract's specifics -- they're opposed to having a contract at all because the union is new. The NYT has been stringing the union along without ever actually signing anything, so now the union has to strike to get the NYT to take them seriously.
Key parts:
> The Tech Guild won its unionization vote in March of 2022, but has yet to agree upon a final contract with management. In September of this year, the Guild voted to authorize a strike with an overwhelming 95 percent (or over 500 members) in favor. The vote marked two and a half years of bargaining with no result. As Harnett puts it, “At some point, you need a deadline.”
> The first key demand is a protection that Times editorial staff already have: just-cause job protections, which would ensure that members cannot be fired without good reason and due process. The editorial staff won this protection in their 2023 News Guild contract, and just weeks ago, 750 Times journalists penned a letter to management urging them to reach a contract with the Tech Guild before Election day.
> The second demand stems from a pay study the union released in June of this year, which found numerous pay discrepancies for women and people of color. According to the study, Black tech workers at the newspaper make 26 percent less than white workers. The study also found that women, who make up over 40 percent of the Tech Guild, earn 12 percent less on average than men, while Black and Hispanic or Latina women earn 33 percent less than white men.
> The third demand in dispute is a frequent source of anxiety for Hoehne in particular: return to office. Currently, many in the Tech Guild work remotely full-time.... Hoehne has been living and working remotely three hours away from the Times office, in upstate New York, since the pandemic began. “I would lose my job. I can’t sell my house. My kid is in daycare. I can’t. All we’re asking is for them to put in writing that we won’t do that to you.”
> But both Hoehne and Harnett don’t think management’s reluctance to settle these demands stems from the particulars of any of the demands themselves; none of them would spark radical changes. The negotiation process has lagged for years, which Times editorial staff experienced en route to their contract as well. Rather, Hoehne said, staring down the barrel of the Election Day strike, management’s immovability feels like it’s more about preventing the union from stabilizing at all.
> “They could easily end all of this with a single phone call or e-mail,” Harnett said. “But they’re making the decision not to. Maybe they don’t believe that we are resolved [to strike]. I don’t know how else to convince them.”
Thank you!
I wish I could promote this (and @crazygringo's helpful summary a few min ago) to the top of the thread. The rest of the HN commentary so far would've benefited from it a lot.
> The two sides negotiated until late Sunday. The sticking points in recent days were over whether they could get a “just cause” provision in their contract, which means workers can be terminated only for misconduct or another such reason; pay increases and pay equity; and return-to-office policies.
This seems like a LOT of issues that still need to be hammered out. It would be one thing if they were disagreeing about a number, but it sounds like the terms keep changing and nobody agrees on the nature of the work itself. It's not even clear that there's a preliminary contract ready for the NYTimes to sign.
Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to pull. But if this is just attention seeking without a serious contract, it seems egregiously risky on behalf of the union members too: there's not a clear button the Times can push on behalf of the union to end the strike immediately. The Times would either have to sign a blank check to the union now, or the union would have to agree to an IOU in exchange for a bunch of temporary concessions.
> Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to pull
I couldn't disagree more. The point of a strike is to demonstrate the value of your labor by withholding it. Withholding your labor in a slow week would be counterproductive. Strikes (just like any effective form of protest) are supposed to be inconvenient, so in saying what you said, you're really just expressing you don't like strikes. Having this blow up in election week is a risk the Times knowingly took in not meeting their workers' needs sufficiently, and drawing out the negotiations as long as they have. The guild is doing the right thing.
> Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to pull
NYTimes has dragged out the negotiations for months, refusing to have a contract. It's kinda a make or break time for the union.
When would be better to strike, what time would NYTimes and the audience prefer? It should be during a choke point otherwise management wouldn't listen.
Additionally, this is a high traffic time, but not really a high stakes time I'd argue. They're not going to influence the election by going out day before or day of it, they will just lose viewership to others covering what's happening.
Negotiations have been going on for 2 years, and the strike was approved in September. This isn’t a spur-of-the-moment, attention-seeking thing and was totally preventable by NYT.
Not sure how risky this really is for the Union. Their software engineers are taking a pay cut for the prestige of working for the most influential newspaper on earth. When your BATNA is getting a 50% pay bump somewhere else then strike away. God forbid if the servers crash while reporting on the second hand recount in Georgia next month.
> Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to pull
That's the whole point of strikes. If you do them when they are less painful, there's no point in doing them. And in this case, is not like the public doesn't have dozens of other options to consume during election week.
> Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to pull.
According to the NY Times article, this was outlined and agreed to by the union on September 10th. So this is the poison pill because the agreement wasn't finished over the last 2 months.
As much as I am a bolshy union member and supporter, this doesn't seem too bad on the surface, the article doesn't make clear what the issues with it are?
Times management said in an email to workers on Sunday that it had offered a 2.5 percent annual wage increase, a minimum 5 percent pay increase for promotions and a $1,000 ratification bonus. It also said that the company would maintain its current in-office work requirements of two days a week through June 2025, while allowing employees to work fully remotely for three weeks per year.
Wow, the company that makes it impossible to cancel their subscription without an hour long phone call also stiffs their workers of cost-of-living wage increases? I'm shocked
This strike seems very poorly messaged. As far as I can tell, the union hasn't given any public explanation of what specific demands management won't meet. The union website doesn't even mention that they're on strike!
The research backs up all the good things that have come out of remote working since at least the pandemic started. Everything is great, employees do better work and the employer gets better work done.
Which was never in doubt if you look at research and metrics.
The kerfuffle about remote being bad only has the stated negative of something about "culture" according to every company that is forcing people off of remote work.
What they don't tell you is
1: the company wants to shift their tax burden to workers from local governments.
2: It is impacting the Commercial Real-estate that the leadership team and board members are getting paid for, on the back end, for leasing office spaces back to the company.
Further:
3: The company is already or will be soon opening a remote team office in Hydrabad, so they are already going to lose #1 and #2 and still not have a decent culture.
Why can't they have a good company culture in Hyderabad? Is there something about Indians that you believe prevents them from developing good company culture?
Just cause feels like a stretch. Is that common in a lot of employment contracts? Feels like one of those rules that sounds like it could make sense but in reality it does not play out and you get this weird cohort of unproductive employees that you can never get rid of.
I am also a member of the union at NPR, on the subway headed to the picket line in solidarity right now. Happy to answer any questions.
I encourage everyone to respect the picket line and get your news elsewhere until the workers get a deal.
The Times Workers are holding the line against arbitrary return to office mandates and for Just Cause protections. The vast majority of HN consists of developers, designers, QA, and PMs who stand to gain from a successful movement to win these rights.
I have digital / print subscription to the NYT. It seems like stories were being published online Monday, and the paper paper arrived. Strike doesn't start until Tuesday?
Does the nyt tech guild have a union security agreement? If so, how does that work with remote workers in right to work states? If not, are non union workers also required to walk out (or be considered crossing the picket lines)?
Grindr devs did ("large"). Announced intention to unionize in July of 2023. In August 2023, the gay republican CEO then made a RTO requirement to force all of engineering to Chicago, after hiring everyone as remote first for years. But designers and project managers would be forced to move to LA.
The union filed an unfair labor practice with the NLRB, but that process has dragged for over a year, even after the union successfully won their vote AFTER the purge.
Why don't workers unionize? Because management can fire them right away with repurcussions only after years, if that, and even then, the repurcussions aren't to the CEO who broke the law. Breaking labor laws should put executives in prison, but noooo, instead penalties are paid by the company and the CEO's move to another company to do the same illegal shit.
The government agencies must move faster if they want to protect workers. Delays only help management, who still get salaries throughout and are never actually punished or face any negative consequences.
Historically big tech provided amazing compensation and benefits compared to everyone except some finance companies. Why unionize and potentially risk a very good thing?
For context, the NY Times does not provide amazing compensation or benefits.
I think Boeing developers might be part of their engineers union.
Tech companies tend not to unionize, because most developers don't see net gain to be had from unionizing. Most unions end up serving the interest of the union instead of the company, and enact things like seniority based pay and promotion. There's just too much incentive to cater towards interest of mediocre employees in a union model.
Another big factor in software development is that the jobs are comfortable and pay very well. So lots of people would happily apply to the job. IIRC, it's something like a 40:1 ratio of applicants to offers at big tech companies.
Google workers created a union (Alphabet Workers Union). However for the most part it is a non-contract union (aka solidarity union or minority union) which means that for now it isn't attempting to get a majority vote of the workforce, which is the process to get formal union recognition and start bargaining for a contract. Instead they are pooling resources and using collective action without that. There are a few small units of workers that have run and won elections though (all contractors I think).
In the 90s there was also a minority union of field engineers at NCR Corporation.
Many big tech companies have a software union, but despite substantial efforts invested from CWA none have gotten close to majority support across a whole company. Microsoft has some majority unions in specific segments of their gaming org.
Media organizations like the New York Times have had unions for a long time. The Times Tech Guild is part of the New York Times Guild, which is part of the NewsGuild of New York, an umbrella organization for a lot of media unions in New York.
There is no tradition of unionization in most tech companies, and tech employees are paid very well and have usually had an easy time moving between companies. If you're unhappy with something, you can probably solve that as an individual without needing collective bargaining.
Tech workers at a company that's already unionized would be more likely to unionize in part because their colleagues are unionized, so they look around and say, "Hey, how come I'm not a part of that?" And the unions themselves can evangelize unions and recruit tech workers to unionize, which is good for the union because it gives them more resources and more bargaining partner. It's much harder for a union to come into a non-unionized workplace and start a movement from scratch, especially with a bunch of people who make six figures.
There's also a libertarian streak to Silicon Valley and the tech industry more broadly. This makes startup culture vibrant but at the expense of more individualism and less collectivism.
It's no coincidence that one of the few areas of tech to have seen a meaningful unionization push in recent years is gaming. Workers in gaming are in much more volatile positions, since it's a hit-driven business with long, expensive development cycles. And there's a constant stream of young, idealistic people who have dreamed of working in games their whole life and are willing to take on terrible working conditions and low pay to live that dream, at least for a while. There's also a lot of roles like art, music, and game design that are hard to parlay into other industries, whereas a software engineer or product manager who works can move between industries with relative ease. So there's an incentive for people in those roles to fix the companies and industries where they are instead of just moving on.
[+] [-] dbalatero|1 year ago|reply
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-new-york-times...
[+] [-] crazygringo|1 year ago|reply
Key parts:
> The Tech Guild won its unionization vote in March of 2022, but has yet to agree upon a final contract with management. In September of this year, the Guild voted to authorize a strike with an overwhelming 95 percent (or over 500 members) in favor. The vote marked two and a half years of bargaining with no result. As Harnett puts it, “At some point, you need a deadline.”
> The first key demand is a protection that Times editorial staff already have: just-cause job protections, which would ensure that members cannot be fired without good reason and due process. The editorial staff won this protection in their 2023 News Guild contract, and just weeks ago, 750 Times journalists penned a letter to management urging them to reach a contract with the Tech Guild before Election day.
> The second demand stems from a pay study the union released in June of this year, which found numerous pay discrepancies for women and people of color. According to the study, Black tech workers at the newspaper make 26 percent less than white workers. The study also found that women, who make up over 40 percent of the Tech Guild, earn 12 percent less on average than men, while Black and Hispanic or Latina women earn 33 percent less than white men.
> The third demand in dispute is a frequent source of anxiety for Hoehne in particular: return to office. Currently, many in the Tech Guild work remotely full-time.... Hoehne has been living and working remotely three hours away from the Times office, in upstate New York, since the pandemic began. “I would lose my job. I can’t sell my house. My kid is in daycare. I can’t. All we’re asking is for them to put in writing that we won’t do that to you.”
> But both Hoehne and Harnett don’t think management’s reluctance to settle these demands stems from the particulars of any of the demands themselves; none of them would spark radical changes. The negotiation process has lagged for years, which Times editorial staff experienced en route to their contract as well. Rather, Hoehne said, staring down the barrel of the Election Day strike, management’s immovability feels like it’s more about preventing the union from stabilizing at all.
> “They could easily end all of this with a single phone call or e-mail,” Harnett said. “But they’re making the decision not to. Maybe they don’t believe that we are resolved [to strike]. I don’t know how else to convince them.”
[+] [-] chrisweekly|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] legitster|1 year ago|reply
This seems like a LOT of issues that still need to be hammered out. It would be one thing if they were disagreeing about a number, but it sounds like the terms keep changing and nobody agrees on the nature of the work itself. It's not even clear that there's a preliminary contract ready for the NYTimes to sign.
Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to pull. But if this is just attention seeking without a serious contract, it seems egregiously risky on behalf of the union members too: there's not a clear button the Times can push on behalf of the union to end the strike immediately. The Times would either have to sign a blank check to the union now, or the union would have to agree to an IOU in exchange for a bunch of temporary concessions.
[+] [-] wesselbindt|1 year ago|reply
I couldn't disagree more. The point of a strike is to demonstrate the value of your labor by withholding it. Withholding your labor in a slow week would be counterproductive. Strikes (just like any effective form of protest) are supposed to be inconvenient, so in saying what you said, you're really just expressing you don't like strikes. Having this blow up in election week is a risk the Times knowingly took in not meeting their workers' needs sufficiently, and drawing out the negotiations as long as they have. The guild is doing the right thing.
[+] [-] marricks|1 year ago|reply
NYTimes has dragged out the negotiations for months, refusing to have a contract. It's kinda a make or break time for the union.
When would be better to strike, what time would NYTimes and the audience prefer? It should be during a choke point otherwise management wouldn't listen.
Additionally, this is a high traffic time, but not really a high stakes time I'd argue. They're not going to influence the election by going out day before or day of it, they will just lose viewership to others covering what's happening.
[+] [-] maronato|1 year ago|reply
https://www.axios.com/2024/09/10/nyt-tech-union-strike-vote
[+] [-] stickfigure|1 year ago|reply
This is such a weird request for technology workers. You want to work with low-performing coworkers?
[+] [-] cool_dude85|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] yoyohello13|1 year ago|reply
That’s leverage. Striking during a time when the business doesn’t care is a dumb move.
[+] [-] PittleyDunkin|1 year ago|reply
It's smart. The one week where americans manage pull their head out of their ass is a good time to move.
[+] [-] bojo|1 year ago|reply
That sounds like an anti-union stance to me.
There's no better time to strike than when your opponent can't afford to look bad.
[+] [-] AlwaysRock|1 year ago|reply
If a strike isnt painful for the employer, what incentive do they have to negotiate?
[+] [-] blululu|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] dakiol|1 year ago|reply
That's the whole point of strikes. If you do them when they are less painful, there's no point in doing them. And in this case, is not like the public doesn't have dozens of other options to consume during election week.
[+] [-] yieldcrv|1 year ago|reply
According to the NY Times article, this was outlined and agreed to by the union on September 10th. So this is the poison pill because the agreement wasn't finished over the last 2 months.
[+] [-] ChrisArchitect|1 year ago|reply
https://archive.ph/f9gP0
[+] [-] mellosouls|1 year ago|reply
Times management said in an email to workers on Sunday that it had offered a 2.5 percent annual wage increase, a minimum 5 percent pay increase for promotions and a $1,000 ratification bonus. It also said that the company would maintain its current in-office work requirements of two days a week through June 2025, while allowing employees to work fully remotely for three weeks per year.
[+] [-] ChrisArchitect|1 year ago|reply
Perplexity CEO offers to replace striking NYT staff with AI
https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/04/perplexity-ceo-offers-to-r...
[+] [-] perihelions|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ChrisArchitect|1 year ago|reply
New York Times Tech Guild Walks Off the Job
https://nyguild.org/post/new-york-times-tech-guild-walks-off...
[+] [-] jayemar|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] artursapek|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] SpicyLemonZest|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] downrightmike|1 year ago|reply
https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4747313-remote-work-b...
The research backs up all the good things that have come out of remote working since at least the pandemic started. Everything is great, employees do better work and the employer gets better work done. Which was never in doubt if you look at research and metrics.
The kerfuffle about remote being bad only has the stated negative of something about "culture" according to every company that is forcing people off of remote work.
What they don't tell you is
1: the company wants to shift their tax burden to workers from local governments.
2: It is impacting the Commercial Real-estate that the leadership team and board members are getting paid for, on the back end, for leasing office spaces back to the company.
Further:
3: The company is already or will be soon opening a remote team office in Hydrabad, so they are already going to lose #1 and #2 and still not have a decent culture.
[+] [-] flappyeagle|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] mvdtnz|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Manuel_D|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] infecto|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] bwestergard|1 year ago|reply
I encourage everyone to respect the picket line and get your news elsewhere until the workers get a deal.
The Times Workers are holding the line against arbitrary return to office mandates and for Just Cause protections. The vast majority of HN consists of developers, designers, QA, and PMs who stand to gain from a successful movement to win these rights.
[+] [-] seoulbigchris|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] DataDaemon|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] jihadjihad|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ChrisArchitect|1 year ago|reply
Official NewsGuild of New York release:
New York Times Tech Guild Walks Off The Job
https://nyguild.org/post/new-york-times-tech-guild-walks-off...
[+] [-] tqi|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] insane_dreamer|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] miltonlost|1 year ago|reply
The union filed an unfair labor practice with the NLRB, but that process has dragged for over a year, even after the union successfully won their vote AFTER the purge.
Why don't workers unionize? Because management can fire them right away with repurcussions only after years, if that, and even then, the repurcussions aren't to the CEO who broke the law. Breaking labor laws should put executives in prison, but noooo, instead penalties are paid by the company and the CEO's move to another company to do the same illegal shit.
The government agencies must move faster if they want to protect workers. Delays only help management, who still get salaries throughout and are never actually punished or face any negative consequences.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3mq4y/grindr-unlawfully-pur...
https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/grindr-workers-united-cw...
[+] [-] marcinzm|1 year ago|reply
For context, the NY Times does not provide amazing compensation or benefits.
[+] [-] Manuel_D|1 year ago|reply
Tech companies tend not to unionize, because most developers don't see net gain to be had from unionizing. Most unions end up serving the interest of the union instead of the company, and enact things like seniority based pay and promotion. There's just too much incentive to cater towards interest of mediocre employees in a union model.
Another big factor in software development is that the jobs are comfortable and pay very well. So lots of people would happily apply to the job. IIRC, it's something like a 40:1 ratio of applicants to offers at big tech companies.
[+] [-] advisedwang|1 year ago|reply
In the 90s there was also a minority union of field engineers at NCR Corporation.
Right now there is a union at blizard.
[+] [-] bongodongobob|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] purple_ferret|1 year ago|reply
Most of those organizations (like the UAW) don't focus on technology positions, so software people are left out in a lurch a bit.
NYTimes has savvy, vocal people in it that have someone overcome this.
[+] [-] SpicyLemonZest|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] heraldgeezer|1 year ago|reply
- https://www.unionen.se/in-english/this-is-unionen
You can be in finance, hr, it, dev, engineering etc. Because we all want transparency, good salary, protection, 40h work weeks, overtime etc.
A union is not going to be involved in specifics like if we use Linux or Microsoft, so why does it need to be tech focused?
[+] [-] swed420|1 year ago|reply
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/bandcamp-union-mus...
[+] [-] tibbon|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] MajimasEyepatch|1 year ago|reply
There is no tradition of unionization in most tech companies, and tech employees are paid very well and have usually had an easy time moving between companies. If you're unhappy with something, you can probably solve that as an individual without needing collective bargaining.
Tech workers at a company that's already unionized would be more likely to unionize in part because their colleagues are unionized, so they look around and say, "Hey, how come I'm not a part of that?" And the unions themselves can evangelize unions and recruit tech workers to unionize, which is good for the union because it gives them more resources and more bargaining partner. It's much harder for a union to come into a non-unionized workplace and start a movement from scratch, especially with a bunch of people who make six figures.
There's also a libertarian streak to Silicon Valley and the tech industry more broadly. This makes startup culture vibrant but at the expense of more individualism and less collectivism.
It's no coincidence that one of the few areas of tech to have seen a meaningful unionization push in recent years is gaming. Workers in gaming are in much more volatile positions, since it's a hit-driven business with long, expensive development cycles. And there's a constant stream of young, idealistic people who have dreamed of working in games their whole life and are willing to take on terrible working conditions and low pay to live that dream, at least for a while. There's also a lot of roles like art, music, and game design that are hard to parlay into other industries, whereas a software engineer or product manager who works can move between industries with relative ease. So there's an incentive for people in those roles to fix the companies and industries where they are instead of just moving on.
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]