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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

#831

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

https://www.semafor.com/article/09/15/2024/new-york-times-te...

"Management says that the Guild has bogged down negotiations with what the paper sees as outlandish, even illegal, proposals. As Semafor previously reported, the Guild proposed a ban on scented products in break rooms, unlimited break time, and accommodations for pet bereavement, as well as mandatory trigger warnings in company meetings discussing events in the news."

"The union, which covers the newsroom's software engineers, product managers, designers and other tech workers, has also put forward language about journalistic integrity and issues around bylines, catch-and-kill, and letters to the editor - which management rejected out-of-hand."

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#832

Post by njarboe »

slt2021 wrote: post #735
crazygringo wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>>According to the study, Black tech workers at the newspaper make 26 percent less than white workers >>women, who make up over 40 percent of the Tech Guild, earn 12 percent less on average than men claims like these always irk me, like did you just compare averages by race/gender? Whoever made this claim, did they control for other factors, like job title/level or productivity? its like the famous "gender pay gap" c…

Employers generally would prefer to pay people less. If you don't ask for a raise you often don't get one. If you ask for a raise, you generally need to consider quitting if you don't get so kind of raise. Men are generally more aggressive about asking for raises. From a certain perspective when one sees a "pay gap" you could think, "Women need to risk more and fight for higher pay. They are bringing wages down for everyone. Let's encourage them to fight for higher pay at the same rate men do." Your mileage may vary.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#833

Post by zulban »

chasd00 wrote: post #767

You don’t get paid while on strike right? This will be interesting if it lasts a pay cycle and that direct deposit doesn’t show up. Rent is expensive. “ Tommy used to work on the docks, union's been on strike He's down on his luck, it's tough, so tough” - living on a prayer by bon jovi

Unions may have a strike fund, saved up over time from union dues, to pay members their salary during a strike.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#834

Post by janalsncm »

slt2021 wrote: post #771
ceejayoz wrote: post #746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whoever made this claim, did they control for other factors, like job title/level or productivity? You get that "all the black people are in lower roles or somehow all deemed less productive" is worse, right?

Deemed “as less productive” by whom? We have a free labour market, if it was true that NYT underpaid Black workers for the same productivity, they could easily jump ship to other company and make more $$. What is stopping “black people” from escaping the supposed inequality at NYT and making more money elsewhere ????

In practice, we use the term “labor market” because those words tend to go together, but if we take a moment to stop and imagine it was an actual “market” it would be a pretty crappy one. Imagine walking into a grocery store and milk was priced as “between $5 and $15”. You need to haggle on the final number. And that’s if you’re lucky to live in a state where prices have to be posted at all! You also don’t really know what’s in it. There is also considerable investment whether or not you end up liking the price. (Imagine you have to stand in line for an hour before you can even begin haggling.)

Anyone who has applied for a job knows that switching companies isn’t free, as it would be in a “free market”. There’s any number of outside factors that could prevent it. And switching too often is also viewed negatively, which is not true of e.g. shares of Amazon.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#835

Post by makeitdouble »

seabass-labrax wrote: post #759
marricks wrote: post #733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when they have specific demands that management is able to meet It's just wild how management is able to unilaterally decide what is and isn't reasonable, and just label unions as childish. "We want to help you, but you're hurting us!" is one small step away from "gosh we love the idea of unions but it causes too much friction between workers and management, and trust me, management knows best."

I don't think parent is defending the management here; rather pointing out that it's a strategic error to play your strongest negotiating card before you are ready to make the deal. True, the New York Times will miss out on the election coverage bonanza this time, but unless the union can say "sign here to make this problem go away" they are just hurting the management for nothing. I've only heard of the story today,…

> "sign here to make this problem go away"

They been saying that about 2.5 years now. They have clear demands that the management can just accept.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#836

Post by JamesBarney »

Spivak wrote: post #781
ceejayoz wrote: post #746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whoever made this claim, did they control for other factors, like job title/level or productivity? You get that "all the black people are in lower roles or somehow all deemed less productive" is worse, right?

Jesus christ thank you, folks on the internet are so quick to dismiss pay gaps just because we know what causes them as if that magically makes it not a problem. Take one factor, women earn less because of mid-career halts due to having children, like the father didn't also have a child . Women bear the brunt because we're expected to be the primary caregivers, and this hurts men too due to the "father babysitting hi…

Any individual woman has far more control over how she and her husband split childcare responsibilities than her employer who was not involved in who she decided to marry or how they decided to split up childcare and financially providing for the family.

And I don't think it's crazy for individuals who dedicate more of their life to work to make more money those who don't.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#837

Post by itake »

TylerE wrote: post #669
itake wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does SWE striking even mean anything to a company? If factory workers don't show up, no products are made. If a SWE doesn't show up, the website is just fine (see elon buys twitter). SWE impact is measured in quarters or years, especially at a big company that doesn't have public deadlines for project delivery.

The busiest news day of the year is tomorrow. You don’t think NYTimes.com not being up to announce the winner isn’t a problem?

Are engineers actively clicking buttons on high traffic days?

Every job Ive ever been in, scaling was automatically managed. Engineers focused on fixing bugs and shipping features, not scaling up instances

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#838

Post by JamesBarney »

taurath wrote: post #664
bko wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds good, but in my experience bad employees were known to everyone. It was difficult to pinpoint exactly why they were bad or toxic, but pretty much everyone agreed. If you gave them some benchmark they would need to hit (e.g. close tickets, be on call, etc), they would be able to do so. So creating a documentation trail is difficult, especially if its based on people saying they don't think he does good wor…

> To think that employers are just randomly firing people for no reason has never struck me as being even remotely true Have you only ever worked with reasonable management? The problem with quick to hire quick to fire is that eventually you might be quick to fire. I suspect you have a much higher level of security than most people to have quality of coworkers as a top priority!

And the problem with slow to hire, slow to fire is one day you might be incredibly slow to hire.

And overall if you're looking to be employed as much of your life as possible quick to hire/quick to fire is obviously better based on unemployment data.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#839

Post by JamesBarney »

slg wrote: post #564
bko wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds good, but in my experience bad employees were known to everyone. It was difficult to pinpoint exactly why they were bad or toxic, but pretty much everyone agreed. If you gave them some benchmark they would need to hit (e.g. close tickets, be on call, etc), they would be able to do so. So creating a documentation trail is difficult, especially if its based on people saying they don't think he does good wor…

>If you gave them some benchmark they would need to hit (e.g. close tickets, be on call, etc), they would be able to do so. Isn't this just a sign of bad management? If employees are capable of doing the work when their job is on the line, it isn't a question of skill or ability. It is a failure of the company to properly motivate, challenge, and reward them for their work.

For white collar jobs management's job is to guide and mentor not babysit adults into doing a job they are paid a salary to do.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#840

Post by dangerlibrary »

zmgsabst wrote: post #807
SiempreViernes wrote: post #791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> claims like these always irk me, like did you just compare averages by race/gender? Probably not, the striking union is the one that contains all the data analysts at the NYTimes, so they have some experience with sociology data. > Whoever made this claim, did they control for other factors, like job title/level or productivity? As explained in the article, the data analysts union mad this claim, it's even explicit…

> finance and sales Weird that jobs with performance bonuses are the largest gap — but that perhaps suggests that the cause isnt sexism in the workplace, but yet more confounders they didn’t account for.

Or that their sales contacts treat women and non-binary folks worse than men.

https://www.newsweek.com/male-and-female-coworkers-switched-...

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