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New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

washingtonpost.com

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Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a hiring problem, not a firing problem.

Hiring consistently high performing employees is not a solved problem. Making it hard to fire low performers results in low performing teams, and there are no reliable solutions to this.

One wonders if it is not solved simply because of at will employlemt? Almost like firms are lazy, and unwilling to go beyond the bare minumum required by law.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if only low-performing coworkers would be terminated. The total freedom of the company to terminate anyone any time for any reason or no reason is extreme, and now we are pivoting to the other extreme. Funny how that happens.

"Just cause" provisions are about an inch away from arbitrary termination, they are hardly "the other extreme."

That's really nice if that is the case.

My understanding from the comments was that this prevents people who don't do their job from being fired, as long as they don't set fire to the servers or something. If I misunderstood, then the union is being nicer than they have to.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#403
post #45

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.

It “feels like a stretch” and “sounds like it could make sense” and “but in reality it does not play out”. You’re just gesturing here. In turn the reply is either yes/no depending on if we agree with the general vibes you are putting out.

Can you be clearer with what you are trying to say? I am simply stating that I have rarely heard of "Just Cause" clauses and I wonder how it plays out in reality. I have my ideas about it but I don't have much of any data but I also generally think its hard to craft well thought out rules like this. Maybe you should take your vibes elsewhere if you don't like data and questions.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#404
post #45

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.

It’s not common in the US but over here in Europe it’s standard practice that you cannot fire an employee at will, most of the time you need to give 1-3 months notice. You can only fire them immediately if there’s misconduct, breach of contract etc.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#405

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 r…

> 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?

The linked article is the New York Times writing about a strike _against_ the New York Times. Factor this into your assessments.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#406

Here is context on the strike, how long it's been brewing, and more that I happened to read yesterday: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-new-york-times...

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.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>The default for the US is "at-will employment", which means that your employer can fire you at any time, no reason needed. >> That seems... fine? In most transaction neither party needs to give "just cause" to terminate a contract. You like having a sword over your neck at all times that an employer can just swing and take away your salary and your health insurance for any reason at all?

To be honest, yeah. I want to reduce the fixed costs of job transfer so that I can be efficiently allocated in the economy because that usually means I can make a lot of money. But I can see how someone who is at a lower skill level would want to raise the friction for hiring - less job mobility is good for them. If someone wants to fire me, I hope they find it easy.

> If someone wants to fire me, I hope they find it easy.

Wut?

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#408

> 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 abou…

> workers can be terminated only for misconduct or another such reason This is such a weird request for technology workers. You want to work with low-performing coworkers?

No, I want management to develop a system to determine who is low-performing, document when those workers don't meet the standards of performance, and reference those documents when they fire someone.

It's just asking for due process.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#409
post #45

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.

Due process for employment is probably more important than fair pay in most union contracts. Your argument is in fact that exact same one that was used to argue against due process in legal proceedings. "In reality it doesn't play out and you get this group of criminals running free on legal technicalities." If you are in a union shop and have a large contingent of unproductive employees, it happens for the same reas…

What argument have I made other than a question? I would like to see data how it plays out. Now I have some ideas of how it plays out but it would be interesting if there was a way to have a test/control group in these types of contracts. I find the struggles here interesting and its fun to watch them play out.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems they failed either because: 1. The businesses didn't know how to handle the workers not being in the office. While a problem in the past, this is now a solved problem thanks to COVID forcing them to figure it out. 2. The businesses tried to hire cheap workers. This is still going to fail, just as hiring minimum wage workers in the US for the job would fail. The workers you actually want charge the same no ma…

I worked both as an offshore contractor, and as part of a team with offshore members. I can ensure that #1 is bullshit. You can have the whole offshore team in an office butts in seats all day and meet with failure. Happened many times in the past. #2 is a possibility. What happens when you do it is that your cheap hires tend to stay for a short time (as they will get better offers later, possibly involving relocatio…

> You can have the whole offshore team in an office butts in seats all day and meet with failure.

If all the butts are in the same office, you are no longer offshoring. You've moved the entire business.

I don't think that is what anyone here is talking about, though. I certainly wasn't. Offshoring normally implies remote work.

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