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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

#621

Post by dang »

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…

Ok, we've changed from https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/04/business/media/new-york-t... to a different source.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#622

Post by corimaith »

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…

Pretty sure other countries with similar CoL but much lower salaries are handling a middle class existence fine. 100k is literally better than 99% of other countries, if that isn't good enough what is?

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#623

Post by dowager_dan99 »

GeekyBear wrote: post #606
themacguffinman wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A neutral source from a third party news outlet. Do you think bias is a one-dimensional tug of war that cancels each other out when combined?

Personally, I would rather have a single story that includes the viewpoints of management and the union along with a neutral account of the events.

This describes newspaper 101... from 20+ years ago. Now it's all "the reaction to the reaction to the most salacious and inflammatory interpretation"

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#624

Post by dang »

7thpower wrote: post #270
dang wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Now that we switched to WaPo I've put it back :)

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#625

Post by warpeggio »

I wish i was part of a union that could strike in solidarity. Wishing them the best and hoping my colleagues see how effective this is. Under late stage capitalism, wages are going to keep dropping and rent is going to keep climbing: The only solution is direct collective action. Talk unions, talk mutual aid, talk about working together.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#626

Post by isbvhodnvemrwvn »

tssva wrote: post #503
bko wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If they are meeting the metrics set to judge their performance how are they bad employees? If the metrics don't properly measure whether the job is being done then change the metrics.

They meet these metrics while they are under formal process just before termination. I used to work with a couple people clearly working multiple jobs who switched focus when they were PIPed.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#627

Post by marricks »

legitster wrote: post #611
39896880 wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I know you are trying to be flip, but there topics that are more important than worker's rights. I'm not going to argue that the NYTimes crossword is up there, but I think a good case can be made that independent journalism is up there, especially during open elections. There is a long list of organizations and governments that made worker's rights more important than inclusive democratic institutions, and it didn't…

Day of election there is a big tally when votes come in and pictures of American Democracy In Action with a bunch of puff stories about people in lines. Huge time for viewership, not a huge time for important journalism.

There is no perfect time to strike, but I think other outlets can cover the typical:

- "huge lines in Pennsylvania!"

- "Polls close in [KEY SWING STATE] in 2 hours!"

- "Wow the whole west coast went blue, who would have thought!"

- "Shocker that one battleground is going into recount which will somehow last 4 weeks."

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#628

Post by shagie »

legitster wrote: post #583
bko wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 becau…

Price's Law is "50% of the work is done by the square root of the total number of people who participate in the work."

https://dariusforoux.com/prices-law/

https://routine.co/blog/what-is-the-prices-law-and-why-is-it...

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#629

Post by ta1243 »

magneticnorth wrote: post #507
ta1243 wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is that require the employer to define what an acceptable level of performance is, and that's notoriously difficult So instead the choices tend to drift to "fire them on the manager's whim" or "practically impossible to get rid of short of murder"

If those are literally the only choices, then I vote for "practically impossible to get rid of." But I think this is a bit of hyperbole - some kind of ongoing, documented low performance seems obviously better than just letting managers fire on a whim.

I agree, that's the european approach.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#630

Post by marricks »

richwater wrote: post #59
marricks wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Work hard without complaining” I don’t think this is the outlook of an ally. I think the answer to that is a strong union able to bring down the website and get management to the table. This is why we all need unions.

> 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...

I see how you could think that based on my phrasing, but presumably they have jobs because they do important work.

I didn't meant to imply they would or should sabotage anything.

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