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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

#641

Post by berniedurfee »

Spooky23 wrote: post #592
Alupis wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll ask again. What is stopping these countries today ? Handwavy, vague "post-colonial" whatever isn't a reason, it's an excuse.

The people who control the resources control the armed forces or paramilitary forces. Plus, if there’s a popular revolt, they are usually motivated by religious, ethnic or ideological factors. Status quo is the interest of the big powers. That tends to bring direct or advisory intervention by western military forces. I’d suggest spending a few minutes googling, you’ll learn alot.

And as has been demonstrated, popular revolts tend to leave a power vacuum that gets filled by just another abusive regime.

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

#642

Post by redwall_hp »

matrix87 wrote: post #493
marxisttemp wrote: post #375

Let’s all remember that the vast majority of programmers are not mathematicians, nor logicians, nor authors, we are tradespeople. And you’ll notice that tradespeople in almost every other industry unionize.

Are traditional engineers considered tradespeople by your definition? I kind of doubt actual tradespeople would be fond of us referring to ourselves as one of them

Tradespeople have apprenticeships, professions have professors.

Trades are skilled labor, professions are knowledge specialists.

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

#643

Post by janalsncm »

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?

The bit you’re quoting is one of the complaints people have raised. It is not the only complaint, and given the near unanimous support for the strike it is not even likely the biggest complaint. They also mention the company handing out PIPs like candy and fears from automation, problems I think many people on this site can sympathize with.

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

#644

Post by janalsncm »

neilyio wrote: post #639
jimbokun wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * 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…

The issue is that we can’t make reliable judgements about the hiring or promotion process based on the outputs without more information about the inputs. But I agree, the answer is more information, not less.

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

#645

Post by TheMagicHorsey »

drivebyhooting wrote: post #486
TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really think a Yale degree makes you better than someone with a community college degree. There's no magic at Yale. The education you get everywhere is pretty good now because of all the resources universally available to all students. But Yale basically applies a filter function and attracts the top 0.01% of high school graduates every year (plus some less elite legacy students and DEI admits). When you hire…

As someone who has studied at both kinds of schools I can tell you there is a WORLD of difference. In a middling school the professor was constantly providing remedial education to the students and had to cut down the curriculum breadth and depth.

When we are talking about the elite 0.01% of students the professor is irrelevant for regular coursework. They are almost uniformly autodidacts. A mentor is of course useful at the very boundaries of knowledge that textbooks and papers don't cover. But by the time you are in that range of work, you will be recognized through your performance, and you can find mentors by reaching out to them with links to your work.

Generally, people are completely unaware of what top 0.01% of performance looks like because we are so rarely around these people unless we are in some very elite institution or working on some project which attracts such people.

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

#646

Post by ETH_start »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #326
ETH_start wrote: post #255

[flagged]

You think the unions own the paper? The editorial board? I have news for you, if there is bias it's not coming from the people not in control. It's coming from the ultra-wealthy people who own these media outlets and I promise you they are not pro-union.

If the editorial board and these ultra-wealthy people want to stay on the good side of the news guild that all of their journalists are members of, then they have to be pro-union. They have to accept the very premise on which the laws that advantage unions were passed, which forces the employer to engage in collective bargaining with the union to the exclusion of all other parties.

The pressure for the management at news media companies to pander to unions on these issues is enormous and inescapable.

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

#647

Post by ETH_start »

donohoe wrote: post #296
ETH_start wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NY Times is pro-union and anti-big-tech in large part because its journalists are unionized and tech platforms disintermediate unions. The workers that produce articles and create the newsroom culture have a conflict of interest that affects its editorial slant. There is also the factor that tech threatens the ad revenue of traditional news media.

I worked at NYT for seven years and I can say from direct personal experience that your many points are not true.

Thanks for sharing your real life experience.

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

#648

Post by tiznow »

aurareturn wrote: post #267
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.

Isn’t it a little ironic that NY Times, and most east coast media, is very anti big tech and pro union while their own employees are protesting because of low wages? Who are they to judge how big tech treats their employees when they pay their own so poorly?

This is a journalism industry problem, not a journalism content problem. Journalists trying to get paid more doesn't exclude Big Tech from criticism it deserves

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

#649

Post by tiznow »

kettlepot1337 wrote: post #362
aurareturn wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it a little ironic that NY Times, and most east coast media, is very anti big tech and pro union while their own employees are protesting because of low wages? Who are they to judge how big tech treats their employees when they pay their own so poorly?

>> Isn’t it a little ironic that NY Times, and most east coast media, is very anti big tech and pro union while their own employees are protesting because of low wages? It is more than a little ironic that the NY Times complains about a "lack of diversity" in silicon valley, when practically the entire NY Times senior staff are generationally rich white people who live in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Here is the exec staf…

It's funny, my experience with NYT and tech has been the opposite as a minority -- probably a lot easier to get in than many would think, but talent is not the fulcrum.

"Half the staff is Jewish" made me laugh though, perhaps closer to true than false. It's funny how people call The New Yorker the pinnacle of privilege as a writer-type, and their staff writer team is more diverse than just about any other East Coast bigwig outlet.

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

#650

Post by tiznow »

ssklash wrote: post #472
marxisttemp wrote: post #375

Let’s all remember that the vast majority of programmers are not mathematicians, nor logicians, nor authors, we are tradespeople. And you’ll notice that tradespeople in almost every other industry unionize.

I've always thought that if a union is good enough for LeBron James and Tom Brady and Mike Trout, it's good enough for anyone. The same reason professional athletes have a union and would not dream of doing without one still fully applies to everyone else.

I agree with you, but consider the "outplaying your contract" and bad blood via arbitration problem we see in more and more (American) sports. Tech jobs aren't like being a plumber, one can't exactly say you need X amount of hours to be ready to do something, even only in the eyes of the law.
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