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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

#961

Post by marcinzm »

TylerE wrote: post #684
marcinzm wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically big tech provided amazing compensation and benefits compared to everyone except some finance companies. Why unionize and potentially risk a very good thing? For context, the NY Times does not provide amazing compensation or benefits.

Maybe in the bay area. My experience elsewhere is that both are sliding much more towards white collar norms. As more and more people fall under the “tech” umbrella I expect those trends to accelerate.

I said historically and unions do not form overnight. Although even right now outside the Bay Area, the pay from big tech is significantly higher than other software engineer roles.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#962

Post by e40 »

nox101 wrote: post #951
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…

and here's the woman who won a Nobel prize for proving otherwise https://freakonomics.com/podcast/a-new-nobel-laureate-explai...

Very persuasive. Intuitively a lot of her findings make sense and are quite obvious, once having read the transcript.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#963

Post by swat535 »

lc9er wrote: post #585
code_for_monkey wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why are tech workers, my industry, so committed to this ideology? Do you think the tech layoffs of the last few years was a justified culling of lazy idiots?

I'm old enough to remember a time when people in tech were called 'wizards' and there was an air of mystery that surrounded the industry. A large subset of this group really seems to have bought into the idea that working in tech makes you 'special'. It does not. It's a skilled profession that is trainable and attainable by large swaths of the population. Working in tech does not make you special (Yes - you) and the…

> "trainable and attainable by large swaths of the population"

Bold assertions requires evidence.

I mean sure we are not "wizards" , but I highly doubt "large swaths of population " can qualify to work in tech as you claim.

Tech remains be a highly desirable position specifically because it's difficult for an average person to fully grasp it. CS has one of the highest drop rates compared to other fields because people fundamentally have a hard time comprehending systems.

I never understand why our profession actively tries to undermine its own status compared to other fields. You never hear Lawyers going around telling people their profession is pointless and any average Joe can master it by taking a 6 week boot camp course.. or that they are "overpaid" for sending a single letter via email.

My pet theory is that the underlying nerd culture enables this due to our insecurities.

I bet this is also why we are not taken very seriously and lack accountability.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#964

Post by wizzwizz4 »

nox101 wrote: post #951
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…

and here's the woman who won a Nobel prize for proving otherwise https://freakonomics.com/podcast/a-new-nobel-laureate-explai...

The linked transcript is describing a very real phenomenon, in quite a lot of detail. The "otherwise" in your comment is a little confusing.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#965

Post by nailer »

immibis wrote: post #412
nailer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can easily compare the civilian/combatant death ratio in the Israel / Hamas conflict to any other recent war, or alternatively look at the population growth of Gaza since Israel has left, to confirm this is false. NYT also covered the fake hospital story and had to apologise regarding it: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/10/new-york-times-gaza-...

> You can easily compare the civilian/combatant death ratio in the Israel / Hamas conflict to any other recent war, or alternatively look at the population growth of Gaza since Israel has left, to confirm this is false. I'm not understanding how the population of Gaza is supposed to disprove the fact that the NYT made up fake stories. Please enlighten me?

The things being disproven are the genocide claim and the claim of the New York Times being biased towards Israel.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#966

Post by mdnahas »

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 am economist and former quant. I wrote a report on the gender pay gap for a candidate for Congress. There is evidence of a gap.

Glassdoor has a great report showing that salaries for the same company and same job title are about 7% lower for women. An academic paper on MBA grads showed that hiring salaries for women were lower. So there is evidence for it.

For the MBA grads, the paper show that with training on negotiation, women got salaries similar to men. So, there are policies that help.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#967

Post by micromacrofoot »

lxgr wrote: post #761
micromacrofoot wrote: post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The full quote is > Hey AG Sulzberger @nytimes sorry to see this. Perplexity is on standby to help ensure your essential coverage is available to all through the election. DM me anytime here.” it's absolutely scab behavior

Sure, but why add "with AI"?

why add "with AI" to the company named "Perplexity AI"?

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#968

Post by wormlord »

sp527 wrote: post #806
wormlord wrote: post #738

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In NYC?? Amazon entry level devs in LCOL areas were making that much in base alone in 2021.

Try redoing your comparison in units of stress per dollar

My simplified equation for stress is: ``` (workload) * (giving a shit) ``` Workload is set by company, giving a shit is set by you. You may not last long, but nothing is stopping you from letting those Jira tickets pile up. It's especially a promising strat if layoffs are market-based instead of performance-based.

Of course I imagine most engineers enjoy feeling productive, and wasting everyone's time does take a psychological toll.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#969

Post by chaostheory »

stego-tech wrote: post #533
chaostheory wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remote work made so much sense for all the reasons you’ve listed.

And yet, remote work alone is not the solution to this issue. For those of us unable to drive, we must live in expensive cities with comprehensive mass transit systems if we want a decent quality of life and opportunities. For those of us who are LGBTQ+, we might not have the safety or support structures to thrive in different states. For those with chronic health issues, living in states with better patient protecti…

It is an immediately available solution for most if not almost all white collar workers. COVID was proof that it worked. However, the incentives and goals are not aligned with both employers and local governments.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#970

Post by intuitionist »

skuxxlife wrote: post #884
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 that there is no gender pay gap based on clearly biased sources irks me. So firstly, you don’t know what the NYT tech guild analysis looked like, so why assume they didn’t control for other factors? It is plausible they could have, given their access to competent statisticians, but we don’t know either way. It seems like you may just want this story to fit your pre-existing narrative. Secondly, there are so ma…

It’s not really plausible that the NYT tech guild would have controlled for factors that would make the pay gap appear smaller, because their incentive isn’t to be truth-seeking, but to attain a superior negotiating position.
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