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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

#911

Post by sp527 »

no_wizard wrote: post #287
stego-tech wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I see people critique those numbers as being “too high”, or demands for additional compensation “unreasonable”, I can’t help but think those people don’t understand that $100k is very much the new $45k of the 2000s, and has much less purchasing power than the latter did at the time. Truth be told, for the present cost of living in the Northeast in general, you’re looking at a family income of $300k to be “comfor…

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…

The value an employee creates is a function not only of their labor but also the *lever they are given by the company* It's amazing how often I see this asinine argument that assumes an employee is generating value in a vacuum.

Labor compensation is determined primarily by substitutability. A $200K engineer creating "$1M worth of value" is not automatically deserving of a higher wage unless there is no one else willing to do that engineer's job for $200K.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#912

Post by mvdtnz »

downrightmike wrote: post #714

Regarding RTO: https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4747313-remote-work-b... The research backs up all the good things that have come out of remote working since at least the pandemic started. Everything is great, employees do better work and the employer gets better work done. Which was never in doubt if you look at research and metrics. The kerfuffle about remote being bad only has the stated negative of somethin…

Why can't they have a good company culture in Hyderabad? Is there something about Indians that you believe prevents them from developing good company culture?

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#913

Post by slt2021 »

interroboink wrote: post #910
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…

> 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 s…

> 99¢ vs. $1 for men

isn't it on the border of measurement error ? Would it be fair to say, after controlling for some variables the gender gap narrows down to 1% (which is a fairly small number if you ask me).

Like $1000 per year on a median salary in the US

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#914

Post by ta_1138 »

csallen wrote: post #448
lucianbr wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if only low-performing coworkers would be terminated. The total freedom of the company to terminate anyone any time for any reason or no reason is extreme, and now we are pivoting to the other extreme. Funny how that happens.

Why is that extreme? If you own a company, why shouldn't you be able to fire someone at any time? If you work a job, why shouldn't you be able to quit at any time? I don't think it's great that our society tries to treat work like it's family, and jobs like they're some guaranteed long-term relationship. It sets people up with the wrong expectations. Your company will lay you off or fire you once they run out of mone…

When your company gets even a little big, the decision making process gets filtered through sufficient levels of management that it's not the company owner firing people at any time: It's an employee who doesn't necessarily have to be aligned at all with what is good for the company that is firing people at any time.

Eventually you learn that one of your middle managers managed to fire someone for some reason that is illegal, or is related to some kind of crime, and guess what? It seeps upward, and your company is in the wrong.

A process doesn't just protect the employee, it protects you from the iffy middle management that, without exception, gets in. And the more freedom you give them, the worse the behavior.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#915

Post by ikr678 »

notatoad wrote: post #698
marricks wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 achi…

Management are already hurt by the formation of the union, and not agreeing to a contract is their way of attempting to hurt the union back.

I'd agree with you if the situation suggested management were acting in good faith, but 6+ months to negotiate is them either not taking the union seriously or trying to wear them down and make union leadership look ineffective to members.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#916

Post by interroboink »

slt2021 wrote: post #913
interroboink wrote: post #910

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 s…

> 99¢ vs. $1 for men isn't it on the border of measurement error ? Would it be fair to say, after controlling for some variables the gender gap narrows down to 1% (which is a fairly small number if you ask me). Like $1000 per year on a median salary in the US

> isn't it on the border of measurement error?

At least going by that payscale.com link, I don't think so. That is compiled from 600K+ responses, so they have enough data to measure small differences with some confidence, I think. I didn't sign up to download the full dataset though, so I'm mostly going by their claims.

Quoting from the article:

  Although $0.99 may seem very close to $1, the red line in the chart
  below has never crossed the dotted $1 line in blue representing men’s
  pay. Even when women are doing the same jobs, the gender pay gap is
  not zero.
If it were a "lost in measurement error" thing, I would expect that chart to have a lot more noise in it — some years women would be above men, other years below (that said, I do wish the charts had error bars). Instead, it's showing a small-but-consistent difference repeated across the years.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#917

Post by devnullbrain »

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…

Surely, every other time you've raised this argument, people have pointed out that job seniority is a desirable and highly contested variable? Saying that it makes sense, because fewer women and minorities are promoted, does not actually support your point. Don't control for job title.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#918

Post by tqi »

Does the nyt tech guild have a union security agreement? If so, how does that work with remote workers in right to work states? If not, are non union workers also required to walk out (or be considered crossing the picket lines)?

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#919

Post by slt2021 »

devnullbrain wrote: post #917
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…

Surely, every other time you've raised this argument, people have pointed out that job seniority is a desirable and highly contested variable? Saying that it makes sense, because fewer women and minorities are promoted, does not actually support your point. Don't control for job title.

I think it helps to isolate the issue and prescribe better targeted intervention measures.

If we can say that for the same level, gender pay gap does not exist, but there is discrepancy in promoting women to senior/executive levels: and there could be many legitimate reasons.

and the issue of gender gap becomes an issue of promoting women to senior levels from the inside, or more diverse hiring for senior job roles from outside.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#920

Post by kortilla »

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…

Were you around during Covid? Many of these employers hired fully remote positions with no timeline to move to an office as a contingency.

This isn’t taking away free coffee, this is a significant altering of the employment. It’s no different than moving everyone in a location to a completely different office on a whim.

Your comment is pretty tone deaf in that it is essentially “I really, really don’t get folks who setup their lives to live in a specific location”. The same thing is happening for people in cities and it has nothing do with middle of nowhere.

> I love working from home, but its just a non-guaranteed perk that can go away anytime and eventually it will,

So is getting paid more than minimum wage and getting extra days off. What a non-argument.

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