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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

#131

Post by greentxt »

cowpig wrote: post #116
impish9208 wrote: post #80

From the WSJ’s reporting on this: > Most employees in the tech union receive pay of more than $100,000, and average compensation, including bonus and restricted stock units, is $190,000, according to a Times spokeswoman. That figure is an average of $40,000 more than members of the Times’s journalist union, she said. > Times leaders have also bristled at the nature of some of the guild’s requests. The union previousl…

Let's put those numbers in perspective: $100k is about $72k after tax[0]. Suppose I want to support a family in NYC. Average cost of living is about $9,000/mo for a family of four[1]. That's $108,000 per year. Or about $36,000 above what I would need to support an average 2-kid family, living paycheck-to-paycheck. So if I want to be able to support a family, 100k is not even close to enough. edit: forgot to add the s…

[flagged]

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#132

Post by gruez »

cowpig wrote: post #116
impish9208 wrote: post #80

From the WSJ’s reporting on this: > Most employees in the tech union receive pay of more than $100,000, and average compensation, including bonus and restricted stock units, is $190,000, according to a Times spokeswoman. That figure is an average of $40,000 more than members of the Times’s journalist union, she said. > Times leaders have also bristled at the nature of some of the guild’s requests. The union previousl…

Let's put those numbers in perspective: $100k is about $72k after tax[0]. Suppose I want to support a family in NYC. Average cost of living is about $9,000/mo for a family of four[1]. That's $108,000 per year. Or about $36,000 above what I would need to support an average 2-kid family, living paycheck-to-paycheck. So if I want to be able to support a family, 100k is not even close to enough. edit: forgot to add the s…

Most families have more than one earner, though.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#133

Post by more_corn »

lolinder wrote: post #53
conartist6 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's assuming the result is a binary this year. I'm expecting torrents of news about this contest, which is likely to turn into a brawl.

And what harm to you would it be to not be aware of whatever nonsense is happening for a few days? Would you have been extremely damaged if you had not heard about January 6th until a week later? Unless you sincerely think there's going to be widespread political violence in your specific area, knowing about what's going on in at this exact moment is honestly as much about entertainment as anything else. And if you n…

Well Trump claimed to have a secret strategy to deploy if he loses. The rhetoric of violence and retribution is increasing from that camp. I don’t think widespread physical violence and an assault on the institutions of democracy are out of the question. It’s not unreasonable for the poster to want access to their trusted source of news in this trying time.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#135

Post by zo1 »

tsunamifury wrote: post #121
xnx wrote: post #113

> more than 600 software developers Does anyone have a sense for how this breaks down? I would never have guessed so many full-time employees were necessary to maintain a CMS.

Is this comment made every time by hacker news people? “I run my basement website with in my spare time? Why can’t one of the most popular websites in the world run on gum and a few paper clips”

> "Why can’t one of the most popular websites in the world run on gum and a few paper clips"

The answer is almost always: Cloud Costs, Kubernetes and Resume-driven architectures.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#137

Post by bee_rider »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #110

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!

> Negotiations between it and the Times hit logjams over things like a “just cause” provision that prevents the company from firing workers unless it’s for something like misconduct, as well as pay increases, pay equity, and return-to-office policies, reports the Times.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/4/24287600/new-york-times-t...

I dunno. It is a negotiation between the union and the company. They might not have prepared much marketing material because they aren’t really selling anything to those of us in the general public, right?

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#138

Post by tsunamifury »

dagw wrote: post #112
laborcontract wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From this article: > The guild said it was asking readers to honor its digital picket line by not playing Times Games products, such as Wordle, and not using the Cooking app. I’m not familiar with digital picket lines, why not ask that people not read via the site? Tying the picket line to Wordle and the cooking app seems to trivialize the importance of the team – Wordle was an acquisition!

My understanding is that, if you judge by traffic, The New York Times is actually a cooking blog and online gaming platform that dabbles a bit in journalism on the side.

Locals newspapers were a grocery shopper and a comic book that dabbled in journalism as well.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#139

Post by tootie »

michaelt wrote: post #128
ceejayoz wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That figure is an average of $40,000 more than members of the Times’s journalist union, she said. The journalist union should push for an increase too, then. NYC cost of living is enormous .

I don't know about the NYT, but in my country newspapers are fighting for their lives, financially. Newspapers closing down and others laying off staff is a regular occurance. Print newspapers are essentially dead. Online news? Barely anyone pays for that. Online with ads? Reddit/twitter/facebook/youtube pay zero dollars for the content they put ads on. If you're in tech and you want to maximise your salary - a compa…

It's the same in the US, but the NY Times is probably the most financially successful newspaper in the world at this point. They are not only the #1 news source by reputation, they made a huge push into digital very early and sell subscriptions to news, gaming (they have the #1 crossword and wordle), cooking, product reviews and sports. They supposedly make as much money on games as news which is why the message from the union has been to boycott wordle today.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#140

Post by _heimdall »

stego-tech wrote: post #118
impish9208 wrote: post #80

From the WSJ’s reporting on this: > Most employees in the tech union receive pay of more than $100,000, and average compensation, including bonus and restricted stock units, is $190,000, according to a Times spokeswoman. That figure is an average of $40,000 more than members of the Times’s journalist union, she said. > Times leaders have also bristled at the nature of some of the guild’s requests. The union previousl…

When I see people critique those numbers as being “too high”, or demands for additional compensation “unreasonable”, I can’t help but think those people don’t understand that $100k is very much the new $45k of the 2000s, and has much less purchasing power than the latter did at the time. Truth be told, for the present cost of living in the Northeast in general, you’re looking at a family income of $300k to be “comfor…

Cost of living has gotten really insane today compared to a couple decades ago.

Its pretty easy to go to college on loans and rack up $150k in debt for an average 4-year degree. Its easy to spend $35k-$50k on a new car, even 10 year old cars in good shape are $10k-$15k. Housing costs vary a lot more by area, but I think most would agree its extremely expensive these days.

The idea that a young family could have $5,000/mo just in debt payments between school, vehicles, and housing is insane to me. That doesn't even account for day to day expenses, children, vacations, etc.

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