New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike • Hacker News Board

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#201

Post by bogwog » Mon, Nov 04, 2024, 4:03 PM UTC

laborcontract wrote: post #105

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…

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!

I guess it's because the software engineer union members are the ones who run that part

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#202

Post by phil21 » Mon, Nov 04, 2024, 4:04 PM UTC

hamandcheese wrote: post #181

chis wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An an American it's hard for me to imagine how companies could ever work with universal protections from firing at will. What if you're running a painting business, and there's a downturn in construction. Do you just have to pay people to do nothing, since they haven't done anything wrong and aren't allowed to be fired? Or what if a large company needs to make a strategic pivot and fire some employees to hire others…

In all those cases, it sounds like the company would actually suffer the consequences of their prior mismanagement (compared to today where mostly just employees suffer from bad management decisions). Yes, that means some companies might go under when they could have saved themselves by mass layoffs. I'd be okay with that trade. Yes, that means growth might slow down to more reasonable levels. I'd be okay with that t…

> Europe isn't booming economically like the US

This would be an extreme understatement.

> but if you've ever traveled there, their quality of life seems perfectly fine

I'm not sure if traveling there is much of an indicator of anything. Doing business there over the course of many years might be a very basic table stakes start to get any idea of what is happening. Even then it will have large blind spots. Most folks traveling to Europe are also traveling to the richest parts of the richest countries and ignoring the rest.

Inertia is a hell of a drug. For how much longer can western Europe stagnate and continue to fall behind the entire world little by little? There are bright spots, but those seem to becoming fewer and further in between. Talk with the younger generations and you may start to get different answers than you expect.

The US system certainly isn't how I'd design things today, but I very much would avoid what the EU is seemingly running headlong into. How much of that has to do with worker protection laws is certainly highly debatable though.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#203

Post by sodality2 » Mon, Nov 04, 2024, 4:04 PM UTC

kayo_20211030 wrote: post #185

gruez wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. False. $45k in 2005 is only $73k today, when adjusted for inflation[1]. Even if you use the most generous interpretation of "2000s" to mean 2000, that's only $82k. [1] https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

There's more in play here than math. An interesting idea is the concept of a "Vibecession", coined by Kyla Scanlon. It's more a focus on how people "feel" about their situation than it is math. It's resonant to me. https://kyla.substack.com/p/the-vibecession-the-self-fulfill...

Do you think people should be compensated more because they feel poorer, regardless of the actual costs of living...? As an avid Scanlon reader I personally think you're misrepresenting her position

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#204

Post by pc86 » Mon, Nov 04, 2024, 4:05 PM UTC

henrikgs wrote: post #186

chis wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An an American it's hard for me to imagine how companies could ever work with universal protections from firing at will. What if you're running a painting business, and there's a downturn in construction. Do you just have to pay people to do nothing, since they haven't done anything wrong and aren't allowed to be fired? Or what if a large company needs to make a strategic pivot and fire some employees to hire others…

That's not how it works at all. Of course you can fire someone with proper cause, you just can't fire someone __at will__. Lack of demand for the position is proper cause. If you don't need staff you can fire them, but you cannot fire someone and hire someone else in the same position.

What's the argument to not be able to fire someone because you can hire someone with better or relevant skills instead? That makes the business stronger, which means it can make more money, which means it can hire more people.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#205

Post by bogwog » Mon, Nov 04, 2024, 4:05 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #132

cowpig wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Most families don't have a strong union that can negotiate a decent wage.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#206

Post by thinkingtoilet » Mon, Nov 04, 2024, 4:07 PM UTC

fakedang wrote: post #189

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People will laugh at it, but pet bereavement should absolutely be a thing. The saddest I've ever been in my life was when my dog died. Perhaps seven days is a bit much, but when you go to the bargaining table you don't start with what you want, you start past that point then negotiate down.

[flagged]

Agreed that is silly. But it is equally silly, and telling in my opinion, that that is what you're focusing on.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#207

Post by AnotherGoodName » Mon, Nov 04, 2024, 4:07 PM UTC

chis wrote: post #176

9dev wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a foreigner it’s so alien to me that such a provision isn’t mandated by law anyway, and that there isn’t broad support in the population to restrict employers from firing at will… wild.

An an American it's hard for me to imagine how companies could ever work with universal protections from firing at will. What if you're running a painting business, and there's a downturn in construction. Do you just have to pay people to do nothing, since they haven't done anything wrong and aren't allowed to be fired? Or what if a large company needs to make a strategic pivot and fire some employees to hire others…

For a start all implementations of such protections i'm aware of don't apply till you have over X employees which rules out your specific example. eg. Australia allows businesses with under 15 employees to fire at will. Small businesses have very little employee protection for exactly the reason you stated; You need to be able to hire/fire since each individual employee is such a large part of your workforce. It's generally understood that if you work for a small employer you are more at risk because of this. Large employers are seen as a safer job.

So these protections are always tradeoffs. You can actually earn more at the smaller companies and those places are typically good to get your foot in the door. The larger companies where these protections apply can afford to follow the process and having the process there gives stability that some people need in a career.

I actually think it comes down to the viewpoints on careers. There's no risk to any particular business since the laws are written to only target business that can reasonably follow the process. There is a different viewpoint on working at bigger stable companies vs smaller companies though. One's seen as a stable career and the others seen as temporary (of course exceptions apply).

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#208

Post by amonon » Mon, Nov 04, 2024, 4:07 PM UTC

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #147

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…

People will laugh at it, but pet bereavement should absolutely be a thing. The saddest I've ever been in my life was when my dog died. Perhaps seven days is a bit much, but when you go to the bargaining table you don't start with what you want, you start past that point then negotiate down.

I felt the same but my preference is to have enough PTO to take off for that.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#209

Post by throw_m239339 » Mon, Nov 04, 2024, 4:07 PM UTC

9dev wrote: post #154

bee_rider wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 p…

As a foreigner it’s so alien to me that such a provision isn’t mandated by law anyway, and that there isn’t broad support in the population to restrict employers from firing at will… wild.

States are free to implement such provisions to protect their workers, in fact not all states are "at will".

As a foreigner, do not forget that USA have several government layers, federal ones and state ones.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#210

Post by bee_rider » Mon, Nov 04, 2024, 4:07 PM UTC

chis wrote: post #176

9dev wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a foreigner it’s so alien to me that such a provision isn’t mandated by law anyway, and that there isn’t broad support in the population to restrict employers from firing at will… wild.

An an American it's hard for me to imagine how companies could ever work with universal protections from firing at will. What if you're running a painting business, and there's a downturn in construction. Do you just have to pay people to do nothing, since they haven't done anything wrong and aren't allowed to be fired? Or what if a large company needs to make a strategic pivot and fire some employees to hire others…

There’s a huge gap between at-will-employment and no ability to fire people at all.

FWIW, it looks like 11 US states have “Implied covenant-of-good-faith and fair dealing” which mean “an employee may only get fired for a reasonable, lawful, and sufficient reason.” The list is also interestingly bipartisan, Alabama, Utah, and Massachusetts are on there. And it must not hurt business too much, since Massachusetts has that very high GDPPP stat.

https://clockify.me/learn/business-management/at-will-employ...