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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

#261

Post by [deleted] »

ceejayoz wrote: post #98
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…

> 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 .

[deleted]

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#262

Post by AdamN »

consteval wrote: post #244
vijucat wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question: what prevents the NYT from offshoring these jobs if they can be done from home? I feel for you, as a fellow worker, but unless there is something hyper-local about the job such as regulatory requirements or trust issues with IP protection, the jobs will go to the ones who work hard without complaining too much.

It's fairly difficult to do American news, centered around American politics and American culture, from not-America. This, at least, applies to editors and journalists. But for tech, I'd imagine they need quite a bit of context too.

Also the tech team at NYT is co-innovating with the business and journalism sides. Their work is highly ambiguous and changing year to year as they move their capabilities forward. That can't be outsourced or it undermines the strategy. NYT could build that capacity over time in another location that's cheaper but it would still need to be tightly integrated (i.e. employees).

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#263

Post by marinmania »

consteval wrote: post #237
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/

This doesn't account for the fact that cost of living doesn't rise at the same rate everywhere. You can't just use national statistics for this. It's entirely possible that in NYC the cost of living went up more than 2x since the 2000s.

fwiw the housing price index in New York has actually seen lower increase since 2000 than the rest of the country

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NYXRSA

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CSUSHPINSA

The same is also true if you use 2005 or 2009 as your start date. I agree there is variance in theory, but in practice it has been about the same as the national.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#264

Post by gruez »

cbhl wrote: post #242
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/

The more I stare at this the more I think that using official inflation numbers / using the official CPI is wrong -- these baskets combine recreation and technology being nearly -50% (TVs can be had today for $300, whereas they used to cost $500 in 1995 dollars), assume you only buy new cars (only up ~25% since 2000, but used cars are now almost as expensive as new whereas they used to be available for half the price…

>these baskets combine recreation and technology being nearly -50% (TVs can be had today for $300, whereas they used to cost $500 in 1995 dollars),

The entire "Recreation commodities" category (which includes other stuff like "Sporting goods" and "Pets and pet products") is only weighed at 2%, compared to 13% for food and 37% for shelter. Even if it's down 50% the impact on the overall CPI is negligible.

>assume you only buy new cars (only up ~25% since 2000, but used cars are now almost as expensive as new whereas they used to be available for half the price or less),

???

There's clearly a "Used cars and trucks" category.

>and underweight housing (basically doubled since 2000, worse if you need to move to a HCOL major urban center for employment).

The index is called "Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers", not "Consumer Price Index for Young Urban Professionals". Not everyone is a recent graduate who recently moved into a high COL city and paying for a market rate apartment. For every person fitting that criteria, there's probably also a retiree who owns their house and/or lives in a rent controlled apartment.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#265

Post by interludead »

brandall10 wrote: post #245
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.

Same. My boy pug dying in 2019 was so distressful that I was coughing up blood the following morning. My father had a massive heart attack a couple months later and I was still numb to the point where I couldn't process it emotionally. For some, esp. those who choose to be childless, a relationship like that is probably the closest we'll come. I was happy the startup I worked at during that time allowed me to take a…

Sometimes, those small acts of kindness in hard times can make a world of difference

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#266

Post by z3ncyberpunk »

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…

So what, if it costs you 300k to be comfortable then you are being suckered. When people are struggling to make it by on $30 and $40k and see these privileged propagandists complain about making six figures, no one has sympathy.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#267

Post by game_the0ry »

gruez wrote: post #146
stego-tech wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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/

That's assuming that headline inflation numbers from the government are an accurate representation of reality.

But they're not.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#268

Post by borkt »

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…

I make ~30,000/yr doing seasonal physical work. Prior to this role I was a municipal engineer. Be careful what you whistleblow.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#269

Post by ericd »

ceejayoz wrote: post #102
richwater wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the answer to that is a strong union able to bring down the website Unions cannot cause intentional or malicious destruction of their workplace. https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/01/politics/labor-strike-supreme...

That was clearly intended to permanently damage/destroy the equipment. Coding a time bomb into the website would be illegal, but they can't force you back to work to fix a bug/outage that happens to occur during the strike.

If your highly cacheable, almost entirely static news site goes out when no one is touching anything, that's pretty suspect.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#270

Post by 7thpower »

dang wrote: post #211
7thpower wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are doing god’s work. Also, fyi for others. Many public libraries have NYT daily access codes you can use for free. It’s a bit of a pain to have to renew each day you want to read NYT but is still great to have. Having a gift link is even more convenient.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42040802 . (Nothing wrong with your post, I just want to pin the parent to the top so people don't miss the links, and it's better not to consume extra real estate up there)

Appreciate the note!
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