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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

#671

Post by WalterBright »

legitster wrote: post #323

> The two sides negotiated until late Sunday. The sticking points in recent days were over whether they could get a “just cause” provision in their contract, which means workers can be terminated only for misconduct or another such reason; pay increases and pay equity; and return-to-office policies. This seems like a LOT of issues that still need to be hammered out. It would be one thing if they were disagreeing abou…

> which means workers can be terminated only for misconduct or another such reason

So the company would be required to retain and pay deadwood, low productive people, and staff for obsoleted positions? That'll cripple any company over time.

If people demand those working conditions, they should get a government job.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#672

Post by TylerE »

briandear wrote: post #661
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are comically uninformed. If the NYT were even remotely progressive, they'd have been consistently flogging the living shit out of Donald Trump and his idiotic, dementia-driven behavior behind a podium for months now instead of pretending like we should accept it as normal while excoriating Harris for behaving like a mainstream political candidate.

Dementia driven? We can certainly disagree on policy objectives, but claiming Trump has dementia is absolute nonsense. Did you watch the Rogan interview? Regardless of one’s views on his politics, there is not even a remote hint of dementia.

Have you? Just last not he was confused about what *state he was in. A week ago he spent 40 minutes kn stage doing nothing as music played until his handlers yanked him.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#673

Post by WalterBright »

quandrum wrote: post #408
stickfigure wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> workers can be terminated only for misconduct or another such reason This is such a weird request for technology workers. You want to work with low-performing coworkers?

No, I want management to develop a system to determine who is low-performing, document when those workers don't meet the standards of performance, and reference those documents when they fire someone. It's just asking for due process.

> It's just asking for due process.

The problem with that is it's a subjective decision, not an objective one.

In every workplace I've been in, it was obvious to everyone who the low performers were. But it's nearly impossible to prove it.

Even if they could document it, it would take a year to document it, costing the company another $100,000 just to replace them.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#674

Post by cush »

reaperducer wrote: post #289
cush wrote: post #239

Doing this the day before the election is savage

Doing this the day before the election is savage Wirecutter (also a Times property) went on strike during Black Friday. Unions can be pretty savage. Like the one in Chicago that was striking at a hotel, but couldn't get any traction, so for weeks took to blaring bullhorns and sirens outside a children's hospital at 2am to put pressure on the city to put pressure on the hotel. In the end, the hotel closed and the peop…

"Like the ... people who tortured the sick children"

I'm not entirely convinced these two situations are even remotely alike. But yeah, by savage I didn't mean unjustified or evil or anything negative.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#675

Post by code_for_monkey »

asdasdsddd wrote: post #451
code_for_monkey wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why are tech workers, my industry, so committed to this ideology? Do you think the tech layoffs of the last few years was a justified culling of lazy idiots?

yes mostly, i worked with many lazy idiots, who undeservedly made millions while our clients and customers suffered

what do you think their opinions of you were?

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#676

Post by Nimitz14 »

drawkward wrote: post #427
bloomingkales wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me correct you, this will be election month at minimum. The NYT kind of brings this kind of heat on itself because it has shifted from being just the paper of record over to an institution to the current definition of progressivism. You can only really do this union kinda stuff against self-important institutions. Which developer is ever going to attempt this on Accenture? They are straight up and honest about th…

> the current definition of progressivism It's a fairly pro-business paper, certainly not very critical of Israel, and you appear to have completely missed all of its somewhat trans-skeptical reporting and opinion. (The latter pervasive enough to rankle many of its own employees about the tone and tenor of NYT coverage of trans issues.)

This is a controversial statement. To pretend that the NYT has not changed is dishonest: https://www.economist.com/1843/2023/12/14/when-the-new-york-...

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#677

Post by shadowgovt »

syndicatedjelly wrote: post #156
bwestergard wrote: post #3

I am also a member of the union at NPR, on the subway headed to the picket line in solidarity right now. Happy to answer any questions. I encourage everyone to respect the picket line and get your news elsewhere until the workers get a deal. The Times Workers are holding the line against arbitrary return to office mandates and for Just Cause protections. The vast majority of HN consists of developers, designers, QA,…

What leverage does the Times tech workers have in this negotiation? Why does their job specifically matter, versus someone abroad who can do some web dev and data wrangling for a fraction of the cost and similar quality?

You have more-or-less hit upon the reason unions exist.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#678

Post by WalterBright »

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.

> If the metrics don't properly measure whether the job is being done then change the metrics.

For workers who work with their heads, "metrics" is a fantasy. How do you measure a better writer?

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#679

Post by madars »

dang wrote: post #649
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.

Please make your substantive points without snark. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html .

That's not snark, that's just taking their argument to its logical conclusion. Big difference.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#680

Post by advisedwang »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #161

Have devs at any of the large tech companies ever tried to unionize? If not, why not?

Google workers created a union (Alphabet Workers Union). However for the most part it is a non-contract union (aka solidarity union or minority union) which means that for now it isn't attempting to get a majority vote of the workforce, which is the process to get formal union recognition and start bargaining for a contract. Instead they are pooling resources and using collective action without that. There are a few small units of workers that have run and won elections though (all contractors I think).

In the 90s there was also a minority union of field engineers at NCR Corporation.

Right now there is a union at blizard.

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