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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

#901
post #894

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> No, that's just something you read on a blog written by 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. What am I missing here? Is it possible to make the workplace injury rate among linemen comparable to the rate among social workers?

That the full argument amounted had this weird structure where women should be excluded from some jobs without complaint because of the danger, but simultaneously there was no interest in making the jobs safer!

So that men work more in dangerous jobs wasn't a problem, instead that was a proper, "of course men should die more" sort of thing because it motivated the pay gap.

So the argument becomes that men should die so the pay gap is sustained, which doesn't seem like a great thing to declare triumphantly?

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#902

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 tha…

I know plenty of dangerous jobs that are poorly compensated. I don't know many millionare inner city convenience store clerks.

Jobs compensate employees according to how much they can get away with exploiting their employees.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#903

As much as I am a bolshy union member and supporter, this doesn't seem too bad on the surface, the article doesn't make clear what the issues with it are? Times management said in an email to workers on Sunday that it had offered a 2.5 percent annual wage increase, a minimum 5 percent pay increase for promotions and a $1,000 ratification bonus. It also said that the company would maintain its current in-office work r…

A 2.5% annual wage increase doesn't even cover inflation over the past few years. That is a complete non-starter.

Front line hospitality workers are pretty much the only ones to do that, and that's only because they were making so little to start with.

Anyone expecting their salaries to get a raise to make up for the 2022 inflation are in for a rude surprise.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#904

I have digital / print subscription to the NYT. It seems like stories were being published online Monday, and the paper paper arrived. Strike doesn't start until Tuesday?

I doubt the NYT's tech stack requires intervention of engineers or product or design people to get out a physical or digital edition of the paper.

That makes sense. So perhaps the immediate impact on operations on election day coverage / reporting is more symbolic than real?

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#905
post #893

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…

The gender pay gap disappears when you control for hours worked, job seniority, and experience. So, why do women work less hours than men and have less experience? That's still an issue even if it's not directly sexist. If we read some bullet points from your post: > Men are more likely than women to have more years of continuous experience in their current occupation. What crawls on four legs and causes women to dro…

> four legs, ...

If we, as a society, want to encourage more kids, we should to allocate those funds as a society, much like roads or anything else (we do, tax benefits, ..., maybe we should do more). If we want to offer welfare for people regardless of their life constraints, that's again a societal decision (and one I'm mostly in favor of).

Pushing that to each individual employer sets up a cat and mouse game where the shadiest organizations barely not getting audited are able to leverage that inequality (supposing we did fix the wage gap at an employer level without addressing underlying factors) to achieve higher profits and outperform the competition.

And that's one of the _better_ outcomes. Switching gears only slightly, suppose (using round numbers for simplicity) the average cost to the employer of maternity leave is 6 months salary and you have a 10% chance of incurring that cost. An organization like the NYT can absolutely self-insure, but at the level of only a few employees you cannot.

Something kind of like the unemployment insurance situation works much better in those kinds of scenarios. The government acts as an insurer to provide the service we as a society have decided is worthwhile, and each employer only has to send in a check for their average liability instead of dealing with a different mountain of paperwork and existential risks.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#906

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You find it reasonable. THe union, and I, do not find a RTO announcement in June (or anytime really) to be a reasonable request. So yes, the article justified the strike. You just don't think the justification is reasonable.

You don’t think it’s reasonable to tell your employees that as a condition of employment they have to be at a specific location at specific times?

I think different levels of "reasonable" are being mixed up here.

By the normal definition, it's a reasonable thing for an employer to want, and a reasonable thing for an employee to not want.

But if we're treating "reasonable" and "strikeworthy" as opposites, then sure it can be "unreasonable".

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#907
post #860

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grindr devs did ("large"). Announced intention to unionize in July of 2023. In August 2023, the gay republican CEO then made a RTO requirement to force all of engineering to Chicago, after hiring everyone as remote first for years. But designers and project managers would be forced to move to LA. The union filed an unfair labor practice with the NLRB, but that process has dragged for over a year, even after the union…

US-centric

When I worked in tech in Germany, we had no union and my WFH contract explicitly said I could be reassigned to any office at any time.

A friend in another industry had this happen: management forced everyone out of Berlin (or you could take a package). He ended up having to move for five days per week.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#908
post #893

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…

The gender pay gap disappears when you control for hours worked, job seniority, and experience. So, why do women work less hours than men and have less experience? That's still an issue even if it's not directly sexist. If we read some bullet points from your post: > Men are more likely than women to have more years of continuous experience in their current occupation. What crawls on four legs and causes women to dro…

> What crawls on four legs and causes women to drop out of the labour force?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motherhood_penalty

progenity penalty is a societal issue, not issue between worker-corp. It is individual choice of a household to pro-create, and each mother's gender penalty is offset by father's gender penalty.

one may argue that America should provide more incentives to working families, but I see it as a society level issue, not the issue between a particular worker union and NYT.

I would love American society to unite once and for all, and ignore all artificial wedge lines created by MSM and uniparty (state, party, rural/urban, region, identity, ideology) and demand better laws that provide longer PFL and affordable childcare.

also in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42047289

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#909

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whoever made this claim, did they control for other factors, like job title/level or productivity? You get that "all the black people are in lower roles or somehow all deemed less productive" is worse, right?

Deemed “as less productive” by whom? We have a free labour market, if it was true that NYT underpaid Black workers for the same productivity, they could easily jump ship to other company and make more $$. What is stopping “black people” from escaping the supposed inequality at NYT and making more money elsewhere ????

People aren't spherical objects. People may rightfully fear being mistreated by horrible bosses and hence stay in jobs that doesn't maximize salary.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#910

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…

> Turns out "gender pay gap" magically disappears as soon as you start controlling for relevant variables

I think this is false?

The gap certainly becomes smaller when you control for those factors, but it does not disappear.

But don't take my word for it; search for "unadjusted gap" (or "uncontrolled") vs "adjusted gap" (or "controlled") to see various reports. Your quoted source does not cite much data that I can see.

My understanding is that the adjusted pay gap is approx. 99¢ vs. $1 for men; one source, with data and a description of their methodology: https://www.payscale.com/research-and-insights/gender-pay-ga...

(and of course, aside from this, the question of why women would tend to have less experience and lower titles than men, is a valid topic on its own, and adjusting for it doesn't make it unimportant)

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