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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

#581

Post by 39896880 »

legitster wrote: post #323

> The two sides negotiated until late Sunday. The sticking points in recent days were over whether they could get a “just cause” provision in their contract, which means workers can be terminated only for misconduct or another such reason; pay increases and pay equity; and return-to-office policies. This seems like a LOT of issues that still need to be hammered out. It would be one thing if they were disagreeing abou…

> Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to pull.

Can we get a definitive list of weeks where workers’ rights are officially less important than $world_event? That way we can schedule our requests appropriately. We don’t want to inconvenience anyone.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#582

Post by lallysingh »

sonthonax wrote: post #513
lallysingh wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also Tech in NYC. The average salary ($190k) is low for that market, so they're asking for an easier work-life balance. Why they have 600 people is a question for management, no? Kafka's not exactly hard to set up, especially for simple configs for low event rates. The justification from the link you posted: > On the other side we have a wide range of services and applications that need > access to this publi…

If it's low for the market why choose to work at the NYT? Being a tech worker isn't like being a steelworker where you're kinda screwed if the plant shuts down. You're fully capable of moving job if you're dissatisfied. > Why they have 600 people is a question for management, no? It's a question for everyone at the organisation. If you're joining a firm with a massively bloated headcount you need to think if you're g…

Well let's get into what NYT does: apps and widgets for several platforms, a separate paid "games" product, advertising backend, podcasts on separate apps, visualizations for key stories.. the list goes on. And at a very large scale.

NYT isn't comparable to The Guardian. It's subscription based so the news isn't enough. They have to add cooking, games, The Athletic, etc, across a ton of different apps, feeds, and presentations.

Games is solely a software product sold as a separate add-on subscription. It's almost certainly a profit center at the rates they charge.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#583

Post by legitster »

bko wrote: post #447
quandrum wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I want management to develop a system to determine who is low-performing, document when those workers don't meet the standards of performance, and reference those documents when they fire someone. It's just asking for due process.

This sounds good, but in my experience bad employees were known to everyone. It was difficult to pinpoint exactly why they were bad or toxic, but pretty much everyone agreed. If you gave them some benchmark they would need to hit (e.g. close tickets, be on call, etc), they would be able to do so. So creating a documentation trail is difficult, especially if its based on people saying they don't think he does good wor…

I worked in fast food and this resonates extremely with me. There were only 4-5 people in a kitchen during the busy rush, and there was a list everyone knew of people they didn't want to get stuck in a shift with. If someone sucks to work with, it really sucks, and because everyone is pitching in and working together, there is no indication that the person was bad at their job. If you were fired, it was usually because your fellow workers said you were bad.

I'm all on board with better pay and benefits. But protecting mediocrity doesn't benefit customers or other workers. Companies may occasionally arbitrarily fire good employees without a good cause, but that would be their loss.

One thing you'll notice in employee-owned companies (as opposed to unionized companies) is that they generally do no tolerate such clauses in their contracts.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#585

Post by lc9er »

code_for_monkey wrote: post #395
stickfigure wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> workers can be terminated only for misconduct or another such reason This is such a weird request for technology workers. You want to work with low-performing coworkers?

why are tech workers, my industry, so committed to this ideology? Do you think the tech layoffs of the last few years was a justified culling of lazy idiots?

I'm old enough to remember a time when people in tech were called 'wizards' and there was an air of mystery that surrounded the industry. A large subset of this group really seems to have bought into the idea that working in tech makes you 'special'. It does not. It's a skilled profession that is trainable and attainable by large swaths of the population. Working in tech does not make you special (Yes - you) and the tech industry is well overdue for quality of life improvements that other, organized, sectors have had for decades.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#586

Post by p_j_w »

csallen wrote: post #448
lucianbr wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if only low-performing coworkers would be terminated. The total freedom of the company to terminate anyone any time for any reason or no reason is extreme, and now we are pivoting to the other extreme. Funny how that happens.

Why is that extreme? If you own a company, why shouldn't you be able to fire someone at any time? If you work a job, why shouldn't you be able to quit at any time? I don't think it's great that our society tries to treat work like it's family, and jobs like they're some guaranteed long-term relationship. It sets people up with the wrong expectations. Your company will lay you off or fire you once they run out of mone…

>If you own a company, why shouldn't you be able to fire someone at any time?

If you're a worker, why shouldn't you be able to band together with your fellow workers to not allow this?

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#587

Post by nickff »

sowut wrote: post #580
calibas wrote: post #431

Why would anybody trust a NYT article about internal drama at the NYT? Does HN not understand bias? Compare the NYT article to other reporting, and you can see the difference. There's a few things the NYT forgot to mention, like the fact that these negotiations have been drawn out for 2 years now. Or this: "Throughout the bargaining process, Times management has engaged in numerous labor law violations, including imp…

"Times management has engaged in numerous labor law violations, including implementing return-to-office mandates without bargaining" this is insane. you can't require your workers to come into an office anymore? that's against the law?

[flagged]

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#588

Post by jacksnipe »

sowut wrote: post #580
calibas wrote: post #431

Why would anybody trust a NYT article about internal drama at the NYT? Does HN not understand bias? Compare the NYT article to other reporting, and you can see the difference. There's a few things the NYT forgot to mention, like the fact that these negotiations have been drawn out for 2 years now. Or this: "Throughout the bargaining process, Times management has engaged in numerous labor law violations, including imp…

"Times management has engaged in numerous labor law violations, including implementing return-to-office mandates without bargaining" this is insane. you can't require your workers to come into an office anymore? that's against the law?

They have a union and an agreement with the union. To change it, they have to negotiate. That’s how unions work.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#589

Post by seanw444 »

sowut wrote: post #580
calibas wrote: post #431

Why would anybody trust a NYT article about internal drama at the NYT? Does HN not understand bias? Compare the NYT article to other reporting, and you can see the difference. There's a few things the NYT forgot to mention, like the fact that these negotiations have been drawn out for 2 years now. Or this: "Throughout the bargaining process, Times management has engaged in numerous labor law violations, including imp…

"Times management has engaged in numerous labor law violations, including implementing return-to-office mandates without bargaining" this is insane. you can't require your workers to come into an office anymore? that's against the law?

[flagged]

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#590

Post by krainboltgreene »

legitster wrote: post #351
krainboltgreene wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems extremely bad taste for you to comment on the situation like this with such little insight. Like do you even have any union negotiation experience? Monday morning quarterbacking is always so tacky.

> Like do you even have any union negotiation experience? I spent 3 years working for a professional union negotiator. I don't know everything, but I feel like I have a bit more insight into how the sausage gets made.

Man I sincerely doubt that because I would never ever feel comfortable commenting like that. I looked through your post history for union references and it seems like you're not all that onboard with american unionization practices. I guess I'm forced to believe you due to anonymity though.
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