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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

#631

Post by hungie »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #302
hungie wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolute hogwash. The existence of people being exploited more does not mean that people being exploited less are not being exploited. Like, yes, these workers are probably in better conditions than many global workers. But that doesn't mean the NYT isn't exploiting them. Also, consider showing some solidarity -- these people are workers, and have more in common with other workers than they have different. Support th…

As long as they're not forced to work, I don't see how NYT is exploiting them. What harsh working conditions are they working under that makes their situation so untenable at NYT but aren't willing to go looking for better conditions elsewhere?

They sure are forced to work. I don't know of a way to survive without working.

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

#632

Post by TeaBrain »

nonethewiser wrote: post #599
WalterBright wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Women, who make up 41% of the Tech Guild, earn 12% less on average than men Such statistics are meaningless without more context. For example, are women over-represented in entry level positions? Do they work the same hours? the same overtime? And so forth. Articles that present such statistics are pushing propaganda.

It’s not meaningless if you want to see women making at least as much as men regardless of the job and their skills. That’s the obvious implication of such statistics.

The intended implication of the presented statistic is obvious, but the actual disparity is impossible to realize without context on the types of positions being included in the statistic.

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

#633

Post by TeaBrain »

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…

In today's market, most companies will automatically filter out bootcamper applications regardless of candidate background. It shouldn't be considered unusual that a subset of those are not being hired.

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

#634

Post by TeaBrain »

_cs2017_ wrote: post #525
xingped wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Jeez why do people think I'm against the union? This is a forum for asking questions and understanding the world. I truly didn't mean to discourage unionization, I was curious about the thinking behind joining the union. It's sad that even on a tech forum people assume things about each other's political opnions instead of discussing. TLDR: I'm not telling anyone what to do.

I think this was a fair question to ask and I'm not really understanding why you're being attacked for it. For a strike to be effective, the union collectively bargaining via a strike needs to have clearly defined, but also realistic demands.

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

#635

Post by tracker1 »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #620
nonethewiser wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think that today is very interesting in that a lot of the R neocons of yesteryear have shifted to D neolibs today. It's really weird in a lot of ways.

Note: I've been pretty heavily libertarian minded for a long time, so this observation has mostly been an outside perspective even though I'm currently more inclined to move R as a secondary/pragmatic position. There are some aspects of R and D I'm inclined to support.

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

#636

Post by tracker1 »

Manuel_D wrote: post #608
nonethewiser wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not meaningless if you want to see women making at least as much as men regardless of the job and their skills. That’s the obvious implication of such statistics.

But is that really a valuable goal? The market determines wages, and usually it's willing to favor sacrifices like a 24 hour oncall rotation. Don't those people deserve for the value of those sacrifices to be reflected in compensation? "Equal pay for equal work" is a much more compelling goal in my view than "equal pay for unequal work". Not to mention it's incentivize companies to cut the roles with artificially inf…

I'd counter it's more likely that you'd see even more corruption and revolving doors between civilian and govt roles. It's very easy to spend other people's money (govt spending from taxes).

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

#637

Post by tracker1 »

IshKebab wrote: post #517
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.

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…

I think the problem is that often the solutions are worse than the problem... price controls, wage ceilings, protectionism, etc. As opposed to offering negotiation training to women to push for the highest wages you can achieve.

I've worked pretty hard to teach my daughter than it doesn't hurt to ask for more than offered, or even to price yourself out of a job if there are multiple opportunities on the table. Women tend to naturally optimize for stability over maximum income and other factors and to accept a given deal vs negotiate. Much like men are far more likely to move to another location for career advancement and higher pay. There are natural tendencies that training can overcome which is likely better than trying to price control.

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

#638

Post by tracker1 »

TeaBrain wrote: post #633
busterarm wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In today's market, most companies will automatically filter out bootcamper applications regardless of candidate background. It shouldn't be considered unusual that a subset of those are not being hired.

About 3/4 of the bootcamp learners I've interviewed only did the minimum to get through the course(s). I've found the biggest differentiator for bootcamp learners are those who did more than they were assigned and those who only did what they were assigned. There seems to be a very significant basic knowledge and skill gap between those two groups. It's even more significant in my experience than those with a more traditional education or self-taught.

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

#639

Post by neilyio »

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?

A lot of comments on this thread seem to feel like the “why” of this matter is settled with an answer of “The men have more experience and are working higher-level jobs. Therefore, they receive higher pay.”

This is not the equilibrium we are aiming for as a society, and the matter is not settled here.

The point of these measurements is not to demand that women are paid more for less work. The point is for us to keep asking “why”, and not just stop after the first one.

“Why are women earning less at the New York Times?”. Maybe the company is just top-heavy with men in leadership roles. This has been floated in this thread as a common cause.

“Why are there more men in leadership roles?”. A few commenters have shared anecdotes of having far more men in their recruiting process. More men applying would help explain more experienced men higher up in the company.

“Why are there more men than women applying?”. We’re getting closer to root causes now. In software engineering, for example, there are just more men in the workforce.

“Why are there more men in the workforce?”. It gets more difficult, but also more important, to investigate the answer at these lower levels. Girls Who Code and similar initiatives are tackling this behemoth cultural problem. It will take years to see the effect of their work, but their success breeds hope that someday, the gap in this New York Times statistic will close a little.

At any of these levels, a company can step in and try and correct the natural bias in their hiring or development pipeline. That is, of course, the most sensitive topic for a lot of us here. Such initiatives should have buy-in from the workforce, and there’s an implication here that the (unionized) workers of NYT do support some kind of intervention.

Their choice, and above all the very measurement of a wage gap, doesn’t need to be threatening to anybody here. It will forever be important to track this number even if we “feel” like the explanations are simple. It doesn’t represent some kind of action the company should be forced to take. It measures where we are on every level of asking “why?”.

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

#640

Post by kennywinker »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #622
codr7 wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, in the platonic ideal of that example. But in the real world, firing 40% of a division will almost always mean a higher workload for the 60% remaining, which in turn leads to lower quality of life for those people, which often leads to higher turnover and projects getting dropped / mistakes getting made / etc.
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