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New York Times tech workers union votes to authorize a strike

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Re: New York Times tech workers union votes to authorize a strike

#181

Post by maximinus_thrax »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #157

It is not clear to me whether going on a strike is a good idea for the New York Times tech workers: Since media is not a sector that has high margins, when a company gets under pressure to have to increase the salaries (e.g. by strikes), the management better starts to analyze how you can reduce the number of, in this case, tech workers because with thin margins, budging in these negotiations is much more dangerous f…

> the management better starts to analyze how you can reduce the number of, in this case, tech workers because with thin margins

This happens anyway, regardless of how well a company is doing. Tech has been laying off workers with record profits and very high margins. But I trust the workers to have better insight than you (or me) of whether the strike is beneficial for them or not in the long run.

Re: New York Times tech workers union votes to authorize a strike

#182

Post by [deleted] »

javagram wrote: post #46
oconnore wrote: post #25

As I understand it, the earliest they could actually strike would be 80 days from today, as per the Taft-Hartley act, putting the strike on November 29 (after the election). Something seems broken when a group is paid relatively fair wages ( https://www.levels.fyi/companies/the-new-york-times-company/... ), works 35 hours a week before overtime, and is talking about going on a strike. I don't think that fits with the…

NYT is the premier digital news outlet. Why should a principal SWE there get paid less than a senior SWE working on Google News, for instance? If NYT has the money it makes sense to me for the employees to ask for higher pay. What else is the original purpose of unions than to give workers power to bargain with the company?

[deleted]

Re: New York Times tech workers union votes to authorize a strike

#183

Post by mattdotc »

Manuel_D wrote: post #141
cool_dude85 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure the tech guild would be happy for the writers' union to win contract raises too. I don't know why you think they wouldn't be.

Is there enough money to afford the proposed pay raises? 6% profit margin isn't much. Granting the proposed pay raises to both groups could easily put the company in the red.

Not sure where your 6% figure comes from, but you can easily find the 2023 Annual Report which states the following:

> Adjusted operating profit margin (adjusted operating profit expressed as a percentage of revenues) increased to 16.1% in 2023, compared with 15.1% in 2022.

You might also look into the NYT's recent history of stock buybacks while denying raises to their lowest-paid employees. The money is there.

Re: New York Times tech workers union votes to authorize a strike

#184

Post by quickthrowman »

dymk wrote: post #164
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #157

It is not clear to me whether going on a strike is a good idea for the New York Times tech workers: Since media is not a sector that has high margins, when a company gets under pressure to have to increase the salaries (e.g. by strikes), the management better starts to analyze how you can reduce the number of, in this case, tech workers because with thin margins, budging in these negotiations is much more dangerous f…

Presumably, the tech workers at NYT have a better idea of if striking is a good idea, as they’re employed there and have better visibility into motives and margins

[flagged]

Re: New York Times tech workers union votes to authorize a strike

#185

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

yieldcrv wrote: post #102
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't tell if this is sarcastic or not. There is a huge reason big tech can afford those compensation packages for employees, and the vast majority of companies can simply not afford that. As someone who's been both a union member and on the management side, it's frustrating when all sides don't realize that unions don't magically make money available to distribute to employees. There is certainly the argument that…

I wasn’t being sarcastic, NY Times is publicly traded too and is fully capable of the model where annual share grants are equal to the base salary, as opposed to a tiny sprinkle you’re supposed to be grateful for in leu of none at all. Their tech team isn't that big, their $8bn marketcap could handle the share grants. I had been critical of how wages haven't kept up with expenses for 30 years, while enamored by big t…

> while enamored by big tech compensation packages.

The thing I think that is highly ironic is that a huge reason you are "enamored with big tech pay packages" is that they're enormous, and a huge reason they're enormous is they sucked up a ton of the revenue that used to go to newspapers.

I think fair equity grants are a great idea, but as another commenter said I don't see why this should in any way be specific to the tech team. What I think is just darn right silly is to compare compensation packages at any newspaper with big tech. It's simply unrealistic to think that there is enough money at other companies to pay those extremely high salaries.

Here's a very easy exercise for you: I haven't looked it up, but I'd be definitely willing to bet per-employee average compensation at, say, Google or Facebook is higher than per-employee revenue at the NYT.

Re: New York Times tech workers union votes to authorize a strike

#186

Post by shagie »

hungie wrote: post #175
shagie wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be more equitable? https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=New+York+Times&assumpti... puts the revenue per employee at $422,656. They've got 5900 employees and https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/07/business/media/new-york-t... says a quarterly profit of $104.7 million. $400M / 5900 gives about $68,000 profit per employee. So, what's reasonable? Would giving everyone a $65k pay raise and zeroing out the profit fo…

If you want the Union's opinion, their strike demands are the place to look. If you want my opinion, what you've described would be a start. Or at least the workers there should be parties to a decision on whether that's the right decision. I'd consider lowering executive compensation as well. But there's many ways to achieve a balance within an organization that benefits the product and the workers.

> If you want the Union's opinion, their strike demands are the place to look.

https://www.axios.com/2024/09/10/nyt-tech-union-strike-vote

> The New York Times Tech Guild, which represents more than 600 staffers, on Tuesday voted to authorize a strike in protest of stalled contract negotiations with The Times' management, sources confirmed to Axios.

I haven't found anything else. While stalled contract negotiations would be reasonable ("we're not going to work without a contract"), it appears that so far those negotiations aren't public for what it is that they want.

...

> I'd consider lowering executive compensation as well.

The CEO has a total compensation package of about $10M per year. Lets slash that to $4M (average for the size of the company of NYT is $8M - so half of what a CEO would get somewhere else) and divide that $6M up between 600 tech workers and they got a $10k pay raise. If this to be divided between all the workers for NYT, it's a $1k pay raise.

While we can bemoan the amounts that CEOs get, slashing the salaries will not often produce significant increases for the rest of the workers.

Re: New York Times tech workers union votes to authorize a strike

#188

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

mattdotc wrote: post #183
Manuel_D wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there enough money to afford the proposed pay raises? 6% profit margin isn't much. Granting the proposed pay raises to both groups could easily put the company in the red.

Not sure where your 6% figure comes from, but you can easily find the 2023 Annual Report which states the following: > Adjusted operating profit margin (adjusted operating profit expressed as a percentage of revenues) increased to 16.1% in 2023, compared with 15.1% in 2022. You might also look into the NYT's recent history of stock buybacks while denying raises to their lowest-paid employees. The money is there.

There are a host of other real expenses that need to be paid that "adjusted operating profit" doesn't account for. I'd be really surprised if total net profit was more than 50-65% of that.

Re: New York Times tech workers union votes to authorize a strike

#189

Post by mattdotc »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #188
mattdotc wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure where your 6% figure comes from, but you can easily find the 2023 Annual Report which states the following: > Adjusted operating profit margin (adjusted operating profit expressed as a percentage of revenues) increased to 16.1% in 2023, compared with 15.1% in 2022. You might also look into the NYT's recent history of stock buybacks while denying raises to their lowest-paid employees. The money is there.

There are a host of other real expenses that need to be paid that "adjusted operating profit" doesn't account for. I'd be really surprised if total net profit was more than 50-65% of that.

Point taken. I'd still maintain that the stock buybacks are egregious and need to stop.

Re: New York Times tech workers union votes to authorize a strike

#190

Post by dymk »

quickthrowman wrote: post #184
dymk wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably, the tech workers at NYT have a better idea of if striking is a good idea, as they’re employed there and have better visibility into motives and margins

[flagged]

That’s not anything like working there
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