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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

#201

Post by yieldcrv »

Manuel_D wrote: post #178
yieldcrv wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

share compensation doesn’t use cash

It does use cash unless the company dilutes the stock by adding more shares. And if they dilute stock, they're effectively taking money from the existing shareholders. There's no free lunch.

being a public company with a liquid market is a license to print shares and the market can decide if it wants to stick around at a similar company valuation

my primary observation is that the world NY Times was formed or floated shares in didn't have the same shareholder tolerances that exist now

tech companies are controlled by one or two key founders, which wouldn't fly at one point, with rampant dilution

they rely on the appetite of the market, and in some other risk on stock markets around the world, even more extremes are seen to fit the appetite of the market

nobody is suggesting its a free lunch, if the market tolerates it then its available to attract talent competitively, or for talent to collectively bargain to extract that value

with the dilution not occurring all at once, I bet you’d be surprised what shareholders would tolerate

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

#202

Post by adverbpraxis »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #111
paxys wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYT is among the top 50 most visited websites in the world and gets upwards of 700M visitors a year. They have apps on every platform. They have interactive content. They host videos and livestreams. They have games. They have a huge social media presence. They have an ads platform. They have the same overall technical challenges as any large tech company.

> NYT is among the top 50 most visited websites in the world Not according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-visited_websites or https://www.similarweb.com/top-websites/ or https://www.semrush.com/trending-websites/global/all > gets upwards of 700M visitors a year. archive.org the last one on Semrush list, gets 255.99M a month . At 59M a month, NYT is nowhere near the top 50. "LooLoo Kids" YouTube channel…

The person you're replying to isn't correct. Last month they got 536MM visits. Ranked 92 globally and 29 in the US according to similarweb

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

#203

Post by ugh123 »

consteval wrote: post #197
ugh123 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

These "X has it worse" arguments are tiresome and lack any sort of rigor. There's modern day slavery in the world. Today. Even in the US we have compelled labor - it's a whole thing in the Georgia prison system. Those McDonald's burger flippers are essentially slaves, and I bet you didn't know that. But if we subscribe to the ideology of "X has it worse" nothing would get done, ever. The reality is even in seemingly…

>What you're describing is relying on the generosity of the corporations who employ them

No i'm not. I'm highlighting the market forces within a competitive, highly paid job market.

These people have options. Other industries, not so much.

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

#204

Post by mbrumlow »

Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #100
mbrumlow wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I did not read your comment until now. Not sure how I replied to it. But anyways much of what you are listing is just more stuff that sounds complex or is not needed. It exist because there was money and it was a big bloated organization. It’s not needed to run the core business and frankly the cost of those things are still small. The number of users don’t change their engineering cost, or at least should not. T…

So is what you're arguing really that because its complex it shouldn't be done? So Netflix should never have been developed, because it wasn't needed and is very complex to run. You could already get videos at your local video store anyway. And how are you deciding what is or is not needed. You're basically saying the company should never innovate or try anything new outside of their existing core business, and shoul…

No. I am arguing it’s complex because of bad design decisions both in the software and business organization.

Everything they do today could be done with under 100 engineers, maybe less.

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

#205

Post by Manuel_D »

yieldcrv wrote: post #201
Manuel_D wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does use cash unless the company dilutes the stock by adding more shares. And if they dilute stock, they're effectively taking money from the existing shareholders. There's no free lunch.

being a public company with a liquid market is a license to print shares and the market can decide if it wants to stick around at a similar company valuation my primary observation is that the world NY Times was formed or floated shares in didn't have the same shareholder tolerances that exist now tech companies are controlled by one or two key founders, which wouldn't fly at one point, with rampant dilution they rel…

The board of the directors represents the shareholders, and they would likely not approve of any significant dilution. Again, the money has to come from somewhere. Either from revenues, or from the existing shareholders. The latter would just tell the union to pound sand, unless the Times is genuinely struggling to recruit talent (not likely).

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

#206

Post by fragmede »

consteval wrote: post #199
ImJamal wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of the support staff are in the union? The union is for the tech workers.

Right, to deliver their product over a tech channel to their many millions of customers. No, that's not easy. Yes, that's necessarily complex. You and your buddies can build a crossword or whatever the hell in a weekend. You can't deliver is to 100 million people tomorrow, while also maintaining one of the US' largest newpapers online.

For a crossword, which shards pretty trivially, while already having a database team to deal with that side of things? Large orgs move slowly so there are many reasons why you couldn't write something over the weekend and deploy it that quickly, but the challenges at that level are bureaucratic, not technical.

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

#207

Post by yieldcrv »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #185
yieldcrv wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

yes, that used to go to newspaper and overhead costs that don’t scale like newspaper

the current structure mandates that other teams have to advocate for themselves, and we’ll find out whats worth what

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

#208

Post by mc32 »

klyrs wrote: post #144
mc32 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The neocon thing is weird. Bernie and others used to compare Cheney with pretty unsavory characters in history, but now he’s lauded by progressives. This shit is getting weird. Some weird realignment is happening where former enemies are bedfellows now with a new enemy. In very loose terms, Republicans are subverting previous Democratic issues and the Democrats are subverting previous neocon issues. The Dems now get…

I haven't seen Cheney being lauded for anything other than maintaining his stand against somebody he has been calling a criminal, coward, and worse for years. I haven't seen a single democrat show excitement over policies supported by Cheney, except when he says that the law should apply to Trump as well as the rest of us. So, again, what you're calling weird is largely a result of loyalty to a person instead of actu…

Well, for one Kamala herself said she was proud to be endorsed by Dick, one previously deemed the be(s)te noir of the left.

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

#209

Post by aleph_minus_one »

brianwawok wrote: post #179
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> urgency on the workers' part is to lock up contracts before the election in order to prevent mass layoffs right after. If workers fear mass layoffs, going on strike is a bad idea. Instead, in such a situation the union should attempt to make an agreement with the employer of the kind "no salary increase (as it would be appropriate in consideration of the inflation), but job security for the next years".

Which is a great way to have a company full of people who can’t be fired with no motivation, harming the parent organization

This is trade-off that a company (and thee employee, too) has to make:

- does the company want to be able to easily get rid of "undesired"/"lazy" employees? For this option, it will likely have to pay bigger salaries.

- on the other hand, for the option to have job security, an employee will have to accept that the expected salary is lower, i.e. the company can save money on salaries, but cannot easily fire the employee.

Both are economically sensible solutions.

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

#210

Post by Manuel_D »

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.

https://www.google.com/search?q=ny+times+profit+margin

In June it was 10.6%, in March it was 6.9%

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