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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

#871

Post by sensanaty »

stickfigure wrote: post #342
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…

> 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?

I hear a lot of anti-worker propaganda like this and it baffles me.

I live in the Netherlands where these types of worker protections are enshrined in law, and I don't think I've ever encountered this boogeyman of the super low performing coworker that somehow ruins things for everyone else. News flash, low performance is still a valid reason for dismissal, it just has to actually be backed up by proof rather than being done on a whim because some manager has a vendetta.

Also, I don't give a shit how low performance my colleagues are as long as the useless managerial class exists. The laziest and most worthless people I've ever interacted with were always managers or manager-adjacent, never a regular employee.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#872

Post by [deleted] »

njarboe wrote: post #832
slt2021 wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>According to the study, Black tech workers at the newspaper make 26 percent less than white workers >>women, who make up over 40 percent of the Tech Guild, earn 12 percent less on average than men claims like these always irk me, like did you just compare averages by race/gender? Whoever made this claim, did they control for other factors, like job title/level or productivity? its like the famous "gender pay gap" c…

Employers generally would prefer to pay people less. If you don't ask for a raise you often don't get one. If you ask for a raise, you generally need to consider quitting if you don't get so kind of raise. Men are generally more aggressive about asking for raises. From a certain perspective when one sees a "pay gap" you could think, "Women need to risk more and fight for higher pay. They are bringing wages down for e…

[deleted]

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#873

Post by no_wizard »

geodel wrote: post #603
no_wizard wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny enough that it’s always “too high” for non executives but executive pay is never policed and any attempts to do so are met with fierce resistance. Which reminds me of another thing. A good friend of mine is currently getting their MBA from a fairly well regarded school. One thing they recently learned about is structuring compensation. The general adage is that whatever you pay an employee must be in reflection…

Well executives are few and non-executives are many. So total outgoing money is more as per accounting department. Nothing funny or conspiratorial here. > A good friend of mine is currently getting their MBA from a fairly well regarded school... Let that good friend of yours get actual job in some non-superlative companies like Wall street banks or FAANG. They will learn how their fantastical ratios of 5:1, 10:1, or…

>Well executives are few and non-executives are many. So total outgoing money is more as per accounting department. Nothing funny or conspiratorial here.

This means nothing. Its a red herring. The fact is executives are paid outsized to the rest of a company typically, certainly when you look at companies of size like Google, Microsoft or even Intel or Nvidia (and so it goes down the chain really), and I really question the value of most executives, as they tend not to like being scrutinized by outside parties, especially within their own organizations, but the reverse is untrue. They really seem to hate accountability but sure love getting the board to rubber stamp golden parachutes and big bonuses for themselves

If a corporation can find 350 million dollars to pay out in executive bonuses salaries etc. I'm certain than is an allocation problem not a money problem.

>If that were true those 100s of thousands companies be making enormous unheard of profits. But that doesn't seem to be happening.

>Let that good friend of yours get actual job in some non-superlative companies like Wall street banks or FAANG. They will learn how their fantastical ratios of 5:1, 10:1, or 25:1 work in real life.

They have one, I'm declining to use identifying information. The largest bonuses and salaries funnel upward, its no secret, with huge executive (and to be clear, I'm bundling VPs and SVPs in this) getting hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in bonuses that those below them see a fraction of.

Like profits being at record highs last year?[0] and thats just 5 seconds of running a search.

Not mention we are talking ratios here. So just because some SMBs aren’t taking in millions doesn’t mean the ratio is any less true

[0]: https://thehill.com/business/4561631-corporate-hit-record-hi....

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#874

Post by no_wizard »

Xelynega wrote: post #527
no_wizard wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny enough that it’s always “too high” for non executives but executive pay is never policed and any attempts to do so are met with fierce resistance. Which reminds me of another thing. A good friend of mine is currently getting their MBA from a fairly well regarded school. One thing they recently learned about is structuring compensation. The general adage is that whatever you pay an employee must be in reflection…

It is interesting that the person you're replying to used the compensation numbers for other guild employees rather than executives. I wonder why they made that decision

Seems like obfuscation. I doubt the NYT guild is striking to take money away from the lesser group, but instead to negotiate better working conditions and potentially a bigger slice of the profits pie for their workers, as would be their right.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#875

Post by l33t7332273 »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #791
slt2021 wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>According to the study, Black tech workers at the newspaper make 26 percent less than white workers >>women, who make up over 40 percent of the Tech Guild, earn 12 percent less on average than men claims like these always irk me, like did you just compare averages by race/gender? Whoever made this claim, did they control for other factors, like job title/level or productivity? its like the famous "gender pay gap" c…

> claims like these always irk me, like did you just compare averages by race/gender? Probably not, the striking union is the one that contains all the data analysts at the NYTimes, so they have some experience with sociology data. > Whoever made this claim, did they control for other factors, like job title/level or productivity? As explained in the article, the data analysts union mad this claim, it's even explicit…

>a guy who would go on to write that women shouldn't get wage equality because they would have to work more dangerous jobs and thus die more, because apparently saving the lives of man by making those jobs safer is impossible.

I think it can be true that we should make those jobs safer and that it makes sense to pay dangerous jobs more.

I really am curious what the people that disagree with me think. Do you think that danger shouldn’t be compensated?

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#876

Post by heraldgeezer »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #802
heraldgeezer wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that this is an american comment. But usually you are focused on each trades. In Sweden we have an "office worker" union. - https://www.unionen.se/in-english/this-is-unionen You can be in finance, hr, it, dev, engineering etc. Because we all want transparency, good salary, protection, 40h work weeks, overtime etc. A union is not going to be involved in specifics like if we use Linux or Microsoft, so why does it…

Because software development is a “trade” and like you said most unions are build around trades. “Office worker” is not a trade/profession.

Just showed it does not have to be based on trade :)

Look @ link

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#877

Post by shagie »

aimazon wrote: post #48
johndhi wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck. I'm curious what you feel about the following: These days news publications generally have a pretty weak business model and a lot of competition. Does it still make sense to have a union in this case? Why?

The NYT is very profitable.

They just released their earnings report.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/04/new-york-times-nyt-q3-earnin...

> Total revenue of $640.2 million was in line with estimates of $640.8 million, as digital advertising thrived.

> Adjusted profit was 45 cents per share.

There are 164,540,000 shares outstanding.

That gives a profit of $74,043,000

They have 5900 employees for a profit per employee per quarter of $12,550

While yes, they are profitable this doesn't suggest that there is a lot of room between profit, pay raise per employee and net loss for the company.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#878

Post by no_wizard »

slt2021 wrote: post #735
crazygringo wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you so much! That is a vastly more informative article. It seems like it's not so much the NYT is opposed to the contract's specifics -- they're opposed to having a contract at all because the union is new. The NYT has been stringing the union along without ever actually signing anything, so now the union has to strike to get the NYT to take them seriously. Key parts: > The Tech Guild won its unionization vote…

>>According to the study, Black tech workers at the newspaper make 26 percent less than white workers >>women, who make up over 40 percent of the Tech Guild, earn 12 percent less on average than men claims like these always irk me, like did you just compare averages by race/gender? Whoever made this claim, did they control for other factors, like job title/level or productivity? its like the famous "gender pay gap" c…

I don't know that the American Enterprise Institute is the most unbiased source of this information.

The author of this particular article you linked to (which itself doesn't really link out to much, other than an interview given by Sheryl Sandberg and references to her commentary from The Guardian, so where is the data coming from exactly?) is also a concurrent fellow at The Federalist Society[0] which has a notoriously right wing bent to its interpretation of law and policy research, which does bring up some questions of bias here, given this and the fact there isn't anything in the linked article that really supports their position, rather its a snippet of interpretation for a Sheryl Sandberg interview and a book titled Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap -- and What Women Can Do About It by Warren Farrell. To which, he uses both snippets outside of their broader context, which both argue that pay remediation is a core component to having gender equality in the workplace, but isn't the only thing

I'm coming up empty here, as to what supports this assertion as any semblance of reality?

Prove me wrong with facts and studies, I’m all ears. I would life to be wrong about this

[0]: https://fedsoc.org/contributors/mark-perry-2

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#879

Post by beepbooptheory »

slt2021 wrote: post #856
beepbooptheory wrote: post #848

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have the time, could you explain what you think "gender studies" entails? Not to step on your broader point at all, but I think you might need to pick a better strawman here. I can only speak anecdotally with my many years in the "liberal arts", but feel pretty confident you would be laughed out of the classroom for bringing such a thing up, whatever side of it you are on. Its just more of a thing people like…

"Gender studies" is usually used as a dog whistle for low rigor Liberal Arts programs like Psychology (as opposed to high rigor STEM programs like Physics). Colleges aggressively enroll low-SAT high schoolers in these low rigor fields, because they want their federal student loan money at overinflated tuition. Colleges have only incentive to overproduce students and hand out diplomas like candy in exchange for studen…

Ah gotcha. Well thanks for responding thoughtfully, reading what I actually said! Good luck with all that, you are fighting a good fight. One day those rigor-less Academia scum are gonna get whats coming to them, I'm sure.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#880

Post by strix_varius »

sensanaty wrote: post #871
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?

I hear a lot of anti-worker propaganda like this and it baffles me. I live in the Netherlands where these types of worker protections are enshrined in law, and I don't think I've ever encountered this boogeyman of the super low performing coworker that somehow ruins things for everyone else. News flash, low performance is still a valid reason for dismissal, it just has to actually be backed up by proof rather than be…

As a sometimes-engineer, sometimes-manager in mostly multinational tech, this doesn't reflect my experience at all.

I've worked with plenty of low performing ICs (as both peer and manager), and the trends are clear:

* companies that don't do, or don't do sufficient, technical interviewing

* employees with heavy worker protections, like in Germany.

I've also worked with fantastic German colleagues btw. But one reason they tended to get paid so much less is that they came with much, much higher risk, as they were essentially un-fireable. Even with imminently clear under performance you're looking at a year of PIPs, paperwork, and CYA bureaucracy.

Personally, I've found it more fulfilling to work in at-will places, for much higher wages, with more uniformly excellent colleagues. There's a reason so many of the best software engineers in the world make their way to the US.

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