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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

#381

Post by lr4444lr »

bawolff wrote: post #253
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…

> Instead of going on strike, it would in my opinion be a better idea for the tech workers to look for a better paid job in an industry with higher margins. If they alternative is quiting, than they don't have very much to lose by going on strike.

If I were looking for jobs, I wouldn't want it on my resumé that I came from a company whose workers just voted to strike - even if I wasn't a member of the union. I would not want it to be assumed that I might be a troublemaker in a not great job market.

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

#382

Post by ryandrake »

jimbokun wrote: post #369
janalsncm wrote: post #258

It should tell you something that 95% of the union voted to strike. I found more information from them here: https://www.nyguild.org/post/new-york-times-tech-guild-votes... I wonder how other news outlets will cover this, if at all. They’re probably afraid others will get the same idea.

> * Women, who make up 41% of the Tech Guild, earn 12% less on average than men > * Black women and Hispanic or Latina women, who make up just over 6 percent of the Tech Guild, make 33% less than white men in the unit > * Black workers, who make up 7 percent of the union, earn 26% less than white workers Do they work equivalent jobs with equivalent experience?

If not, then that's also an equity problem. If the "dog jobs" are mostly offered to women and minorities, that should also be called out as a problem for employers to solve.

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

#383

Post by draw_down »

fullstop wrote: post #79
ipsum2 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYTimes games section is more popular than its articles. They're basically a mobile game company that happens to have a news division.

Guilty. I've done the daily crossword for the last 445 days.

[dead]

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

#384

Post by Workaccount2 »

jimbokun wrote: post #369
janalsncm wrote: post #258

It should tell you something that 95% of the union voted to strike. I found more information from them here: https://www.nyguild.org/post/new-york-times-tech-guild-votes... I wonder how other news outlets will cover this, if at all. They’re probably afraid others will get the same idea.

> * Women, who make up 41% of the Tech Guild, earn 12% less on average than men > * Black women and Hispanic or Latina women, who make up just over 6 percent of the Tech Guild, make 33% less than white men in the unit > * Black workers, who make up 7 percent of the union, earn 26% less than white workers Do they work equivalent jobs with equivalent experience?

If we look at past times these things are brought up; almost certainly not. Often things like part-time vs. full time aren't considered or amount of overtime hours worked (for hourly jobs).

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

#385

Post by robertlagrant »

xingped wrote: post #359
_cs2017_ wrote: post #348

How much of a comp boost would an average NYT tech worker get if the union succeeded? Let's say 10% for the sake of the argument. Please correct me if I'm way off. Wouldn't they be able to get a much higher comp by interviewing with other local tech firms? If so, why don't they? Seems more effective than waiting and hoping for a small increase through the union.

This is such a weird response. Do you collectively interview for other jobs? No. Would you tell any other union this? No. Collectively bargain for your current job and raise the standards for everyone now and in the future. I don't know why tech is so hyper-individualist.

It doesn't raise standards. It squishes them at both ends, particularly the top. That might be what you want, but tech salaries have bloomed massively because there isn't a union. You might say "that's over; now let's lock in our massive salaries", but I doubt it'll work that way.

Tech isn't hyper-individualist. It just leans slightly to the individual, because any half-decent tech worker is worth a lot to an organisation, and they don't need a union rep to negotiate on their (and hundreds of other people's) behalf.

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

#386

Post by twojobsoneboss »

ipaddr wrote: post #332
lacker wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the New York Times will end up both with a unionized tech workforce, and a lower-paid one. Personally, I would never want to join a union or work as management at a company with a union, but I am still kind of curious to see what the result of a tech workforce unionizing would be.

Lower salaries and treating everyone like a cog.

Tech salaries have ALREADY fallen and tech workers have already been largely treated as cogs. Yes it could get even worse but I get why they’re taking their chances

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

#387

Post by consteval »

ImJamal wrote: post #345
jakelazaroff wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would have been a much better comment without the last sentence.

The person I was responding to said I thought Harris is a communist. Where did he get that from? Nowhere. He invented it out of whole cloth. He also implied that I am a supporter of "far right insane wackos" for asking for a basic confirmation. He formed an entire narrative about me from asking a simple question. A question that nobody sane could really come to the conclusions that he came to. Perhaps it would be bet…

I didn't, and I said nothing of the sort.

I said the NYT, and other media outlets, are not "far right insane wackos". Some people then run with that and say they're left-wing. That's not the case.

NYT is center-right, maybe center, and absolute worst-case slightly center-left. Our perception is warped, because we compare it to the likes of Fox News. Which is so unbelievably far right, that just about anything looks left-leaning in comparison.

> went on a rant about what he perceived my views to be

This didn't happen. Please, reread my comment and you'll notice I said absolutely nothing about you or your beliefs. I spoke of extreme right-wing beliefs. Whether you identify with that or feel shame about that is not my problem. If you're privy to creating personal attacks to fuel a sense of victimhood, that's on you.

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

#388

Post by consteval »

kortilla wrote: post #251
consteval wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 The prisoners yes, the McDonald’s workers absolutely not. The avg McDonald’s worker tenure is quite short and having briefly been one, I can assure you it’s nothing like slavery. Get a grip.

> the McDonald’s workers absolutely not

Absolutely yes, it's a whole program for coerced labor. Like I said, I bet you didn't know about it because this shit is absolutely under the table in regards to our media.

But yes, we do, to this day, have prisoners who are mostly black forced to work for well under minimum wage in private businesses, such as McDonald's, Wendy's, Golden Corral... sounds a lot like slavery when you put it like that.

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

#389

Post by pc86 »

ryandrake wrote: post #382
jimbokun wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * Women, who make up 41% of the Tech Guild, earn 12% less on average than men > * Black women and Hispanic or Latina women, who make up just over 6 percent of the Tech Guild, make 33% less than white men in the unit > * Black workers, who make up 7 percent of the union, earn 26% less than white workers Do they work equivalent jobs with equivalent experience?

If not, then that's also an equity problem. If the "dog jobs" are mostly offered to women and minorities, that should also be called out as a problem for employers to solve.

This presupposes a lot of pretty nasty things. It reads like you apply to the NYT and then you get offered a job based on your gender or race which is obviously not the case. That lack of equity (which is equality of outcome, not opportunity) is itself a problem and not simply a byproduct of different people being different. That when your entire sample size is 622, you can make broad generalizations based on the pay of ~37 of them. Even if you can, it also assumes that your salary in your job is based on objective set criteria and not a) whether you negotiate, b) how hard you negotiate, c) whether you have a BATNA that makes you need the job less, d) whether you had breakfast that morning or were more tired than normal or were coming down with a cold or any number of a myriad of other things that could affect a high-stakes negotiation.

The pay gap as a systemic issue (for equal work for equal hours with equal qualifications) has been debunked a thousand times over. But while it's certainly possible (likely?) that some individual companies have a racially or gender-driven pay gap, it's a far stretch to assume that the NYT is one of them.

Equality of opportunity is good, giving people a leg up early in their lives when they've been disadvantaged, regardless of their race or gender, is good. "Equity" for the sake of it is racist.

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

#390

Post by salawat »

aurareturn wrote: post #267
janalsncm wrote: post #258

It should tell you something that 95% of the union voted to strike. I found more information from them here: https://www.nyguild.org/post/new-york-times-tech-guild-votes... I wonder how other news outlets will cover this, if at all. They’re probably afraid others will get the same idea.

Isn’t it a little ironic that NY Times, and most east coast media, is very anti big tech and pro union while their own employees are protesting because of low wages? Who are they to judge how big tech treats their employees when they pay their own so poorly?

...Just because you're being payed absurdly doesn't legitimize your work any either. There's a lot of work that's aimed at getting done where the big fat paycheck is considered "STFU and do what you're told. with what we're paying you, we own you."

Just because you're potentially paid 500k to essentially implement the basis of metadata leakage and privacy compromise on scales that previous century actual dictators couldn't even reasonably dream of does not make the work of implementing it more "legitimate". It just makes it easier to attract people who value naterial comforts right now over safety from systemic abuse later. It's all tradeoffs.

Someone'll pay you well to do ultimately horrible things, and make it sound like you're doing everyone a favor.

Juniors, take note. You set the bar on the hell you'll be trapped in down the road. Always, always, be suspect.

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