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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

#971

Post by casey2 »

Nathanba wrote: post #922
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…

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…

Point 1: The hidden implication is obviously the continued problem of large firms over-hiring when labor or money is cheap and then performing mass layoffs when it's not. If you are hiring someone or a group with plans of firing them later then the contract wasn't established in good faith. Many of these workers can make more hourly if they are independent, they are paying for stability. No company should be able to double dip by hiring a large team to build a system and then firing most of them to maintain it on a shoe-string budget, if they want to do that they can pay top dollar to have a 3rd party build it

Point 2: No matter how it shakes out, if you structure your company in a way that white men or asian men are incentivized to do more or women and blacks are incentivized to do less, then your company has a racist incentive structure and it should be rebuilt. They aren't flying in 15-year-old Hadje from Chad, the people they hire are all similarly qualified so there shouldn't be such a large gap, as we know cause if we restrict it to just white men then there isn't this large pay gap. Besides, it's a complete myth that people are "payed what they are worth" if that were the case a 100xer would make 100x more than a 1xer after firing 99 people and keeping the 100xer. In reality they might double or tripple their pay and the rest just becomes (record) profits for the company and 99 people are out of work.

Point 3: Does the company have any evidence that it doesn't work or should we just take their word? Doesn't work in what sense? That profits for the company aren't maximized? If that's the only metric then why should the employees be payed at all? Just have them as slaves and use the government to beat or kill them if they disagree.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#972

Post by Justsignedup »

science4sail wrote: post #654
Justsignedup wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All people who don't care say "can you please go over there, in the corner, where I can't see you, so you can protest and I can appropriately ignore you." The point of a protest is to annoy you. Annoy you enough into action.

Annoyance so that bystanders support the protesters' demands or annoyance so that bystanders act against the protesters out of spite? After all, the Westboro Baptist Church's protests don't seem to have been very effective at promoting the cause of homophobia. I think that protests are a risky move unless the general population is already sympathetic to the protesters' goals.

> After all, the Westboro Baptist Church's protests don't seem to have been very effective at promoting the cause of homophobia

Those protests are to provoke people into physical violence. They are organized by a personal injury lawyer.

> Annoyance so that bystanders support the protesters' demands or annoyance so that bystanders act against the protesters out of spite?

People say a lot of shit, but actually doing an effort out of spite is work, if they do that, they probably think. This is how all protests work. The 1960s black rights protests would like to have a word with you regarding efficacy. :)

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#973

Post by Justsignedup »

hollerith wrote: post #653
Justsignedup wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All people who don't care say "can you please go over there, in the corner, where I can't see you, so you can protest and I can appropriately ignore you." The point of a protest is to annoy you. Annoy you enough into action.

What action am I supposed to take on behalf of these cognitively-privileged workers already earning six-figure salaries?

Support them by boycotting. I don't understand your statement here. Are you saying that because you have it fairly well, that you should let your labor be as exploited as possible?

If I earn 200k a year, and my employer earns 1MM a year from my labor, why should I not protest for better work conditions, or more % of my labor? If my labor is valuable I should be able to capitalize on it as well.

A worker earning 20k who is making the employer 40k a year is earning a higher % of their labor value than someone making 200k earning 1M a year for the employer.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#974

Post by mock-possum »

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...

I think this comment on that episode provides some excellent food for thought - https://freakonomics.com/podcast/a-new-nobel-laureate-explai...

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#975

Post by ElevenLathe »

zdragnar wrote: post #903
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The longshoremen managed it.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#976

Post by Melchizedek »

crazygringo wrote: post #371
dbalatero wrote: post #63

Here is context on the strike, how long it's been brewing, and more that I happened to read yesterday: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-new-york-times...

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…

[flagged]

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#977

Post by CrimsonRain »

shadowgovt wrote: post #381
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?

Ages ago, I spoke with someone who had experience doing union organizing in the steel industry about why tech workers didn't unionize. I told him that the first step would be for tech workers to stop thinking that their greatest competition is other tech workers. (Flip the question: "If your coworkers are low-performing but the union prevents the company from firing them, why don't you just go form your own company w…

How about you open a new company with your low performing buddies and form union with them elsewhere? Fields where skill disparity is extreme, only low performing leeches or lazy ones want union so they can leech off of colleagues who do real work.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#978

Post by [deleted] »

Justsignedup wrote: post #973
hollerith wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What action am I supposed to take on behalf of these cognitively-privileged workers already earning six-figure salaries?

Support them by boycotting. I don't understand your statement here. Are you saying that because you have it fairly well, that you should let your labor be as exploited as possible? If I earn 200k a year, and my employer earns 1MM a year from my labor, why should I not protest for better work conditions, or more % of my labor? If my labor is valuable I should be able to capitalize on it as well. A worker earning 20k w…

[deleted]

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#979

Post by zdragnar »

ElevenLathe wrote: post #975
zdragnar wrote: post #903

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The longshoremen managed it.

If my understanding is correct, they haven't yet. The raise is spread out evenly over 6 years, so it'll probably be at least 3 years before they return to pre-pandemic purchasing power.

Still quite extraordinary, though I'm not sure how long they had already been at their current rates, so maybe less impressive? Not really sure.

Re: New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike

#980

Post by gffrd »

anonu wrote: post #842
7thpower wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are doing god’s work. Also, fyi for others. Many public libraries have NYT daily access codes you can use for free. It’s a bit of a pain to have to renew each day you want to read NYT but is still great to have. Having a gift link is even more convenient.

The irony of your comment is that tech workers want pay increases (amongst other things) and here we're talking about avoiding paying for their product. NYT is a great publication and I'm happy to pay less than a $1 a day for tons of great content.

Nobody's talking about not paying.

We pay for the library, and the library pays for an access license. NYT gets paid.

Gift articles are sent by subscribers … who pay.

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