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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

#611

Post by tqi »

smoores wrote: post #239
tqi wrote: post #97

> Kathy Zhang, a senior analytics manager with The Times and the guild's unit chair, said, "Management has really dragged its feet when it comes to bargaining," between the union formation and now. Maybe tangential, but I would have guessed people managers were not eligible to be a member of the union. Does anyone know how eligibility is determined?

Kathy isn’t a people manager, the Times just has confusing titles for its data folks. Product managers and project managers likewise often have “manager” in their titles without being people managers. No one with direct reports is allowed to be a member of the union!

Ah that makes sense, thanks for clarifying!

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

#612

Post by darby_nine »

nonethewiser wrote: post #602
darby_nine wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of thing is impossible to control for, though. How can you tell whether someone's success or lackthereof (including via degree of responsibility) comes from earnest evaluation of merit or social bias? I have a difficulty imagining trusting any kind of confident assessment of the bias at hand.

> This kind of thing is impossible to control for Then it’s impossible to determine if its sexism

Sure, but people are always going to make their own judgements, so why bother complaining about it? It comes off like you're trying to defend the industry as being equitable when it clearly caters to people with certain skills.

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

#613

Post by hungie »

walrushunter wrote: post #569
hungie wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NYT is not a left wing organization. It aligns, mostly, with a centrist Democrat politically. That position puts it pretty center right on the global scale. A left wing paper would typically be pretty anti capitalist, anti imperial, etc. which the NYT is definitely not. This is a global forum, it's important to remember that while the democrats in the US are called "the left" there, they really really are not a l…

The Democrats are most definitely leftwing. What a preposterous thing to claim. Just because other countries are withering away under socialism, doesn't suddenly make the Dems right wing.

I'm sorry, you are simply incorrect here. Some members of the Democratic Party are left of center, but by and large they are a center/center right party.

They broadly support capitalism, broadly support imperial military power, broadly do not support single payer health care, broadly do not support nationalization of industry, oppose criminal justice reform, oppose upzoning, oppose transit, oppose large tax hikes, and are active in the eradication of minorities.

Biden shut down a major labor strike, he expanded drilling for oil, he made it easier for states to medically and socially discriminate against trans people, he's pumped up the police, and he's continuously armed a state accused of genocide. Biden has put forth one of the most restrictive border policies we've ever had, and kept many trump era policies. The democrats also had the opportunity, years ago, to permanently secure abortion access and chose not to. They have by and large expanded the carceral state (and coined the concept of super predators to ensure Black people remained incarcerated.)

Also, and this might be a shock, democrats are anti gun, while many many leftists believe in gun ownership. (Karl Marx, Martin Luther king Jr., Malcom X, etc were all believers in individual ownership of firearms.)

Leftists generally believe in nationalization, limiting corporate and executive power (or eliminating it), social housing, socialized medicine, free food and water, elimination of oil drilling, trains, dense urban areas, mutual aid, "wellbeing for all", free education, free childcare, etc.

I've never once seen a Democrat say that we should abolish private property. If you think democrats are left wing you simply don't understand what left wing means.

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

#614

Post by IshKebab »

superb_dev wrote: post #526
IshKebab wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it's really difficult, but that doesn't mean you should just give up and take the average. There was a case recently in the UK where Next (high street clothing chain) were paying their warehouse staff more than their shop staff for (apparently) similar work. The shop workers had a higher proportion of female workers than the warehouse workers (something like 70% vs 50%). Next claimed this was because the market…

The IT department isn't doing comparable work, so of course that wouldn't work.

Clearly warehouse workers don't do the exact same work either though. Otherwise it would be the same job and the market rate would be the same.

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

#615

Post by hungie »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #299
kennywinker wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And unions will only solidify that into stone to prevent any sort of optimization that would bring the complexity down. It looks like you've bought into some anti-union talking points. Efficiency is sometimes good. But sometimes it's just a way of shifting profit from workers to capital. As an example: if I replace 100 workers managing a server farm with an AWS account - the money that would have paid 100 humans to…

> Efficiency is sometimes good. Efficiency is always good. What you're basically saying is that you want to have your cake and eat it too. Which doesn't actually happen.

Sauron was a villain not because he loved evil, but because he loved efficiency above all other things.

Learning that efficiency comes with a cost, and sometimes that cost is our humanity, was a hard lesson for me to learn.

We always need to consider efficiency, but not always pursue it.

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

#616

Post by hungie »

seneca wrote: post #71
hungie wrote: post #31

Good for them. More workers need to be understanding just how much they are being exploited by their leadership and demand a more equitable piece of the pie.

The word "exploit" has no meaning at all if you can stretch it so far as to cover NYC tech employees.

They are producing value for the NYT, but only being paid a fraction of that value. Labor is entitled to all the value it creates.

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

#617

Post by Rinzler89 »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #555
Rinzler89 wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I called your argument "this racism shit" since you're trying to argue how some people today are poor because of events from 150 years ago and not do to their own actions or inactions. That would be like me blaming my lack of financial success in life on the Ottoman empire's occupation of my country. How about personal responsibility? How can you blame people you've never met and who are long dead for why you're poor…

Interesting. I wonder what could be the cause that a certain minority culture doesn't value education highly? Go out on a limb, what could it possibly be.

I dunno, you tell us why, since so far you haven't made any arguments, but kept baiting and beating it around the bush with loaded questions. Just say what you want to say.

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

#618

Post by reissbaker »

donohoe wrote: post #395
reissbaker wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kelsey Piper, a journalist at Vox, leaked two years ago that the NYT has had a years-long top-down directive to only write negative stories about tech [1]. Plenty of journalists have confirmed this since. Since you worked at the NYT for seven years, want to explain that particular policy in light of your rebuttal that the NYT had no conflict of interest and wasn't trying to smear tech companies? 1: https://x.com/Kels…

You are making a very different claim here. The parent comment says: >> The NY Times is pro-union and anti-big-tech [...] That is the claim. These are the reasons it sues, and my notes on each: * journalists are unionized and tech platforms disintermediate unions Thats a broad generalization based on the authors opinion and not necessarily true. The attitude was not reflective of my interactions with journalists eith…

It could be said that that any journalist who covers any subject has a conflict of interest

I think that's a really weak claim. Journalism has had significantly reduced revenues in the late 2000s through today due to the rise of tech platforms that let people learn about what's happening in the world for free online. Both print and online newspaper combined revenue has been wiped back to the 1950s [1], for example. Journalists covering, say, election politics have no more conflict of interest than any other American. But they definitely have more of a conflict of interest covering tech than other Americans! For most Americans, tech has largely contributed to economic improvements: you can buy more advanced products for less inflation-adjusted money, pretty much every year. You have a supercomputer in your pocket and you can talk to your lights and tell them to turn off while you're lying in bed. For journalists, though, tech has been devastating.

You might try to claim that because journalists don't set their own salaries, somehow this removes the conflict of interest. But that implies journalists are incredibly stupid. You can't work in a vastly diminishing field and not realize that it's going to depress your salary and job opportunities over time, regardless of whether you set the salary or not: there's just vastly less money to go around. And that's what tech has done to traditional journalism.

And the NYT is not immune. While it's doing better than its peers (many of whom have gone out of business), it's not doing well: it's experienced approximately zero market growth since its peak in 2002 over twenty years ago, when shares traded for about $48. Today, they trade for $52. And working at the only institution in your field that hasn't experienced total collapse, but has achieved no growth in 20+ years, is obviously going to color your views on the sector that did that to your field.

1: https://www.statista.com/chart/612/newspaper-advertising-rev...

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

#619

Post by washadjeffmad »

andsoitis wrote: post #319
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.

> I wonder how other news outlets will cover this, if at all. You are reading this on another news outlet! Last year, NYT tech workers also had a strike over return -to-office, as covered by Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/new-york-times-tech-workers...

I'd cry irony, but I couldn't imagine the modern NYT writing about the help.

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

#620

Post by Der_Einzige »

nonethewiser wrote: post #601
missedthecue wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered why companies don't overhire women to save on labor costs. The only explanations I can rationalize is that management isnt aware of the pay difference, or they are aware but they're more sexist than they are greedy.

Same reason Republicans voted more heavily against Jim Crowe laws/for the civil rights act. Green is the only color that matters.

In that era republicans were the more liberal party and the north voted for them.
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