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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

#621

Post by snapcaster »

taeric wrote: post #368
snapcaster wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you actually delegate your thinking to studies like this? If someone linked a study covering strike timing would you read it and make your opinion? this almost reads like a parody

If I was in a position where a decision impacted me directly, I would, of course, be willing to act on what information I have. As a non-impacted person, I'm afforded the luxury of seeking more information. I am not, despite the tone from this discussion, specifically anti-union. In the spirit of your post, though; I have grown rather suspicious of any cause that is so against getting more information. Putting the qu…

i don't handle difficult tactical political situations by resorting to academic studies because that's dumb so it wouldn't matter to me what a study says

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

#622

Post by ExoticPearTree »

codr7 wrote: post #541
ExoticPearTree wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Nothing is always good at any cost.

I am not saying that, I am saying that if a division can be run with half the people, there is nothing wrong in firing 40% of the people in that division, just to have a little overhead in case of emergencies.

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

#623

Post by pc86 »

keeganpoppen wrote: post #574
darby_nine wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Obviously? A newspaper is exactly the kind of business to hire based on your personal narrative (including 100% of protected class intersections). That's the entire point of the opinion column. Granted, I don't think that the folks being discussed here are publishing any personal opinions,…

man the downvotes on this thread are all over the place-- people need to take a long, hard look in the mirror about what discourse they actually tolerate, vs what they tell themselves... it's absurd. at best this comment is mildly combative, but it doesn't seem like OP took it personally, as they shouldn't have, but yet... downvote city. it's especially bizarre because i couldn't even tell you what ideological trigge…

I try not to talk about voting on here per the guidelines, but it is pretty interesting to me the cross-section of completely legitimate, valid viewpoints that will get obliterated if they're mentioned on the wrong thread. Like everyone else I'm predisposed to think my particular ideology is slightly more persecuted than the other one but it doesn't even seem to be liberal v. conservative, authoritarian v. libertarian, or Democrat vs. Republican. I'm sure the initial thread topic has something to do with it and I do recall dang saying they keep an eye a little more closely on threads that are particularly political.

I'd be curious to see an analysis of downvoted comments in political threads and what their general ideological bent was.

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

#624

Post by jimbokun »

darby_nine wrote: post #612
nonethewiser wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

But that is equitable, no?

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

#625

Post by jimbokun »

busterarm wrote: post #595
echelon wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't the interviewing. I conducted around 500 interviews at my last company at all stages: initial screen, technical, architectural, etc. There were simply far more white men applying. (And this is in Atlanta where we have a highly bimodal racial distribution.) It wasn't like we weren't bending over backwards to attract diverse candidates. I personally went to HBCUs on outreach programs, and there were dozens of…

You're looking at it too narrowly. In fairness, I should have said "it's the recruiting process". It's not the "interviewing" itself but it's the recruiting stage. If you're looking at fresh graduates you're already significantly skewing things. It's hard to blame companies for this, but a few of the bootcamps are cranking out nontraditional candidates and many companies still overlook them in hiring. Remember that s…

So stability and ability to complete assigned tasks are not relevant characteristics for an employee?

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

#626

Post by smoores »

taeric wrote: post #364
smoores wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure exactly what you mean, but most non-managerial employees at the Times are now unionized. It is no one’s goal to improve the labor standards of the union members at the expense of non-union employees. It is nearly impossible to obtain contract language covering anything other than workplace and employment conditions for union members, as the company isn’t legally required to negotiate over any other topic…

Many of the concerns listed seem to call out jobs that are not part of this union. Stuff like, "Women and people of color are significantly underrepresented in the most highly compensated reporting and editing roles in the newsroom." I agree that is a concern, I'm not clear that "reporting and editing roles" are part of this union's leverage, though. I think that is the worst of them, so maybe it impacted how I read…

Oh, this is because the page linked above is for the “Times Guild”, not the Time Tech Guild. Times Guild is the journalists; the Times Tech Guild is the product engineering folks that just authorized a strike. They are two separate unions within the Times. They support each other but do mot have precisely the same platforms or negotiations with the company.

This press release goes into more detail as to the motivations for the strike: https://www.nyguild.org/post/new-york-times-tech-guild-votes...

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

#627

Post by smoores »

taeric wrote: post #92

What are their demands? And, cynically, is anyone even going to notice that they are striking? Seems unlikely, to be honest.

This press release elaborates on the motivations for the strike: https://www.nyguild.org/post/new-york-times-tech-guild-votes...

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

#628

Post by taeric »

snapcaster wrote: post #621
taeric wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was in a position where a decision impacted me directly, I would, of course, be willing to act on what information I have. As a non-impacted person, I'm afforded the luxury of seeking more information. I am not, despite the tone from this discussion, specifically anti-union. In the spirit of your post, though; I have grown rather suspicious of any cause that is so against getting more information. Putting the qu…

i don't handle difficult tactical political situations by resorting to academic studies because that's dumb so it wouldn't matter to me what a study says

This is dumb, though? For one, I don't necessarily care if it is an academic study. If you have any writings from experts, that would still be of interest to me. Hell, the entire point is to try and learn from something without having to do it.

For two, if you have so settled your view that you won't take any criticism or advice, why bother engaging in discussion? You are actively harmful to the public discourse, at this point. No?

I'm sympathetic in thinking someone is stalling in bad faith. But bad faith denouncing of their seriousness is not good, either. :(

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

#629

Post by taeric »

smoores wrote: post #626
taeric wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of the concerns listed seem to call out jobs that are not part of this union. Stuff like, "Women and people of color are significantly underrepresented in the most highly compensated reporting and editing roles in the newsroom." I agree that is a concern, I'm not clear that "reporting and editing roles" are part of this union's leverage, though. I think that is the worst of them, so maybe it impacted how I read…

Oh, this is because the page linked above is for the “Times Guild”, not the Time Tech Guild. Times Guild is the journalists; the Times Tech Guild is the product engineering folks that just authorized a strike. They are two separate unions within the Times. They support each other but do mot have precisely the same platforms or negotiations with the company. This press release goes into more detail as to the motivatio…

Ah, that makes things much better for the platform page linked earlier! I see now that there was a selector at the top of the page to move specifically to the Tech guild. And it is spartan, but that feels expected for such a young guild. Huge thanks on pointing out that misread of mine!

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

#630

Post by hungie »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #283
hungie wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the list of things I posted they have to do to ship their product? It's non trivial because those are hard problems and their space is large. It should be that complex because it is that complex.

Is it? A lot of small startups seem to be able to do 80% of that list just fine. As bad as the modern web is, if you think embedding media is a hard problem, one of us has clearly gone bat crazy. (To be clear, I welcome being told why embedding media is a really hard problem, but my experience hosting a self-implemented blog says otherwise.)

The New York Times has a bunch of media visualizations that are often quite dynamic. Building those requires engineering and ux time. Then, ensuring they play well with their custom page layouts takes time.

I'm not talking about embedding video, I'm talking about custom built JavaScript data visualization elements.

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