Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

691–700 of 1001 posts

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#691

Post by serial_dev »

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…

> Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to pull.

They are so silly, why have the strike when you have the greatest leverage, they should wait with their strike until a more convenient moment when they could be easier ignored.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#692

Post by WalterBright »

pc86 wrote: post #646
quandrum wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 not "just asking for due process." Everyone has interacted with a government office with an absolutely worthless employee who is just sitting around counting down the days to retirement where they can continue getting taxpayer money for doing nothing. Just because there's a process to get rid of someone doesn't mean it will ever happen. This is a ploy to make it harder to fire bad programmers. If I have to try t…

I read a statistic some years ago that public school teachers have the lowest rate of firing of any profession. The union has been successful in instituting a "process" for firing a teacher that is so onerous, time consuming, and complicated that it never happens.

The only way a teacher can get fired these days is for showing up drunk or high, or having relations with a student.

(And yes, in spite of this, there are some gems of teachers.)

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#693

Post by cab11150904 »

standardUser wrote: post #274
gsky wrote: post #37

I outright deny non remote positions. We got one life after all.

It's a luxury to be able to do that, though the more of us who do it the more companies must oblige. In that sense, these kinds of strikes are doing us all a favor.

It's actual the height of privilege. And likely unrecognized and unappreciated privilege. It really is sad that the divide is so large that the person that can turn down jobs thinks they're the oppressed.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#694

Post by WalterBright »

senko wrote: post #636
quandrum wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hello from Europe. Tried that, didn't work. It's incredibly hard to quantify "low-performing" for white-collar workers, because any measure is either easily gamed, actually creates roadblocks and bad incentives, or both. Now companies are wary of hiring people because it's harder to fire.

> companies are wary of hiring people because it's harder to fire

This is another one of those obvious "unintended" consequences. The harder it is to fire someone, the correspondingly harder it will be to get hired. Companies will be unwilling to "take a chance" on someone.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#695

Post by shagie »

jkestner wrote: post #310
reaperducer wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech generates more money than the Times. It's the journalists that create the content for the tech end. Without them, there would be no Times tech employees.

They're all in it together. The journalists should strike for everything they want as well!

https://www.threads.net/@astor.maggie/post/DB82iPoxKMC

> Some background: The Tech Guild represents hundreds of software engineers, product designers, data analysts and others who make and run our website, apps, games and publishing systems. It’s a sister to my union, the NYT Guild, which reps the newsroom (and advertising, security & more!).

> The NYT Guild contract contains a no-strike clause. That means we in the newsroom are legally forbidden to go on strike with Tech. So we will be supporting them in other ways, some of which you can also do.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#696

Post by randomdata »

jajko wrote: post #493
kortilla wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t think RTO is reasonable, which is a completely logical stance to take if you’ve setup your life working from home (esp if it’s hours from the office).

... which is something people did on their own, without agreeing with their employers on duration etc. I love working from home, but its just a non-guaranteed perk that can go away anytime and eventually it will, and companies shouldn't break their backs to accommodate people. There is free job market to match one's expectations, triple especially in places like New York. I really, really don't get folks who setup th…

> you bear the consequences if the risk doesn't pan out your way.

Okay, but that's what they are doing. They can't work there anymore under the current situation, so they have accepted that their risk didn't bear fruit and are now no longer working for the NYT. Consequences bore.

They have graciously extended an opportunity to the NYT for it to reconsider the current state before the workers walk away for good. Accepting risk doesn't mean you can't still be cordial. At this point they are still willing to go back if the conditions allow them to. But if the NYT in the end says "no, we don't need you anymore, it is time for us to close up shop", so be it.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#697

Post by ElevenLathe »

jajko wrote: post #493
kortilla wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t think RTO is reasonable, which is a completely logical stance to take if you’ve setup your life working from home (esp if it’s hours from the office).

... which is something people did on their own, without agreeing with their employers on duration etc. I love working from home, but its just a non-guaranteed perk that can go away anytime and eventually it will, and companies shouldn't break their backs to accommodate people. There is free job market to match one's expectations, triple especially in places like New York. I really, really don't get folks who setup th…

> its just a non-guaranteed perk

"Perk" is another way of saying "working conditions". They are bargaining over salary, benefits, and working conditions. Therefore, it's on the table.

Whether or not the bargaining workers are responsible (or even sympathetic) with their private living arrangements is not part of the negotiations, and so it doesn't materially matter.

The workers are not "owed" WFH, but neither is the paper "owed" RTO. They have to bargain over it. One side, or likely both sides, will have to give somewhere on the basket of issues they are bargaining over. Maybe the paper loses on this, but gets something else they want like lower salary. Or maybe workers are willing to RTO if they get some kind of commute allotment (pay for their gas/metrocard/whatever).

The bargaining is holistic, over the whole contract terms. The process is not simply that they go item by item and try to convince each other to change their minds. The process is that they bargain the entire package until they are both OK with accepting it.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#698

Post by notatoad »

marricks wrote: post #597
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…

> Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to pull NYTimes has dragged out the negotiations for months, refusing to have a contract. It's kinda a make or break time for the union. When would be better to strike, what time would NYTimes and the audience prefer? It should be during a choke point otherwise management wouldn't listen. Additionally, this is a high traffic time, but not really a high stakes t…

>When would be better to strike

i think the point the parent is making is that a better time to strike would be when they have specific demands that management is able to meet - to get them to the negotiating table, or to get them to sign a contract.

but in the case where management is already at the negotiating table, and there's no contract to be signed, it's not clear what short-term goal a strike is meant to achieve. the only thing it does is cause hurt. Hurting management is going to make their negotiations more difficult. and hurting management in this specific way is not just hurting management, it's also alienating their journalist colleagues who should be their strongest allies in this fight.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#699

Post by legitster »

wesselbindt wrote: post #670
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…

> Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to pull I couldn't disagree more. The point of a strike is to demonstrate the value of your labor by withholding it. Withholding your labor in a slow week would be counterproductive. Strikes (just like any effective form of protest) are supposed to be inconvenient, so in saying what you said, you're really just expressing you don't like strikes. Having this blo…

Sure, but you are also appealing for public sentiment. So there's a reason why teacher's unions carefully time their strikes so they don't clash with important events like SAT season.

I'm not arguing they need to pick the slowest week, but striking a balance seems pretty reasonable and pretty standard for most other unions.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#700

Post by WalterBright »

eikenberry wrote: post #659
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?

If the alternative is to be under constant existential threat of being laid off... I could see is as the lesser evil. IMO, recent events are the reason for this item being included.

A sensible person would not have their finances stretched so thin that they cannot deal with an interruption in their employment. I.e. one should be setting aside at least 10% of their income.

I worked for a company once that was doing poorly, and management decided to do an across-the-board 10% pay cut. One of my coworkers was livid with rage. I asked him why didn't he just quit and get another job? He said he didn't have any savings at all, and bills to pay. He had a mcmansion with expensive new furniture, new cars for himself and his wife, and expensive clothes. He had forged the chain connecting him to his desk - not the company's fault.

Post reply on HN