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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

#931

Post by marcus_holmes »

l33t7332273 wrote: post #875
SiempreViernes wrote: post #791

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…

It's more that I don't see the relevance of that to the subject being discussed.

If dangerous jobs are paid more, what does that have to do with the gender pay gap?

And, let's face it, two of the most dangerous jobs around at the moment are teaching and nursing, both of which are predominately done by women.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#932

Post by bankcust08385 »

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…

The point of strikes isn't to be unobtrusive or convenient. You're just saying people should work for nothing and not take the fat cats to task for underpaying them. Maybe if you stood for solidarity with the workers, you would have some credibility.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#933

Post by bankcust08385 »

legitster wrote: post #699
wesselbindt wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Teachers are also paid crap because they continue to work for starvation wages. They should strike more because they will not receive more compensation with gentle pleas that are convenient.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#934

Post by bankcust08385 »

null0pointer wrote: post #772
legitster wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When teachers or doctors or nurses strike regular people, the general public, suffer. In the case of the NYT tech staff nobody suffers except the NYT leadership. Oh no you can't read NYT during election week. Whatever, read something else.

The megacorps' refusal to negotiate or compromise is what caused the problem. They are the villains, not the working people being understaffed, underpaid, and hated on by selfish third parties who don't understand solidarity.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#935

Post by Nathanba »

tivert wrote: post #929
Nathanba wrote: post #922

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't know, all these points sound so weirdly out of touch with reality, it feels like we live in a world of children and there are no parents anymore. Point 1: Only getting fired for a good reason? Who decides what a good reason is? The boss right? So what are we even doing here, what's the hidden implication? They want a foot in the door to be able to argue that X wasn't really a good reason and they'll stri…

> Only getting fired for a good reason? Who decides what a good reason is? There are these things that exist called courts and independent arbitrators... > Pay discrepancies for "women or people of color" could easily have real world reasons, maybe they really are just worse at their job, less engaged, less ambitious, whatever it is that causes less pay. > ... > I need to have the legal power to pay worse people less…

We can just take this exchange as an example, maybe that helps to clarify my actual position. Imagine if I had to contact an independent committee before I could "fire"(=ignore) your comment with several snide insults. I'd get bogged down, my work day would be slower. Imagine if somebody could drag me to court over every comment decision because hey, maybe I just ignored it for no good reason, or because you are black or white or have a certain religion. You could file an appeal at HN that I have to give you more attention. So in your desired reality we will have to find out during the court proceedings and in the meantime I am forced to pay you 15% more attention *by default* in an irrational attempt of fairness to all the other comments if they received 15% higher attention.

Having certain protections against discrimination is a good thing but they should be very carefully applied. We can already see that the New York Times Tech Guild does not seem to want careful application of these rules if their website doesn't even mention any evaluation of worker productivity or value, all their study apparently did was to look at pay difference without looking at work difference. A perfect example of a total failure to care about the correct things, a total failure to care about what the company needs to achieve (=actual value) and just looking at pay with no connection to possible reasons I enumerated. https://www.nyguild.org/post/pay-inequity-at-the-new-york-ti...

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#938

Post by erulabs »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #882
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…

> This seems like a LOT of issues that still need to be hammered out. They have been negotiating for two and half years. That seems like plenty of time to me. Can you imagine a union nego taking that long in a country where labour laws are stronger? Seriously: Can you imagine Germany's IG Metall spending 2.5 years to negotiate (without success!) a new contract? It is unthinkable. One thing I have observed over the ye…

I’m never sure how to feel about arguments that take the form of “it’s obvious, just compare to ”. I’m not sure how many Americans in an average group of 100 are aware of the average union negotiation time of a specific German union, but I’d guess between 0 and 1? I asked my German wife and she looked quizzical and asked if I needed her to Google it.

I’m not disagreeing with you but I’m not sure this form of argument-by-esoteric-fact accomplishes your goals. Maybe I’m just uninformed, but as an uninformed reader, I’m not inclined to believe you. Present it as novel information and not something hilarious obvious, and you would probably have won at least one supporter.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#939

Post by zeroonetwothree »

bankcust08385 wrote: post #933
legitster wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Teachers are also paid crap because they continue to work for starvation wages. They should strike more because they will not receive more compensation with gentle pleas that are convenient.

I just checked and in my school district the lowest paid (full time) teacher made ~$100k in 2022 (the highest paid made $180k). I would hardly call that "starvation wages".

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#940

Post by zeroonetwothree »

willsmith72 wrote: post #511
purple_ferret wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very common in union contracts. They way it usually works is there is a probationary period that you can fire someone under for any reason (usually 90 days), but after that, supposedly you're more protected. That said, in practice, it doesn't really prevent you from being part of a layoff or anything. You'll just get more notice and complaints.

Union contracts, or just about any permanent contract in "the west" except America

Probably there's a reason most innovation comes from America then.
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