New York Times Tech Workers Go on Strike on Eve of 2024 Election, Alleging Unfair Labor Practices
Hundreds of employees of the New York Times represented by The Times Tech Guild — the union affiliated with the NewsGuild of New York that manages the technology behind the newspaper’s election coverage, among other things — have gone on strike one day before the 2024 U.S. elections.
The Times Tech Guild represents more than 600 engineers, data managers, designers, software developers and tech personnel who develop and run the systems that power the paper’s website and apps. If the strike continues into Tuesday, it will be the first to coincide with a presidential election in the NewsGuild since the 1964 Detroit newspaper strike, according to the union.
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“Despite the risk of a Tech Guild [unfair labor practice] strike disrupting access to news during the presidential election, management has failed to meaningfully address tech workers’ key concerns,” the union said Monday. The NewsGuild of New York has filed unfair labor practice charges against the Times and has alleged “numerous” violations of labor law.
None of the Times’ writers or editors who are covering the election are directly involved in the Times Tech Guild strike. A spokesperson for the Times said the company has “robust plans in place to ensure that we are able to fulfill our mission and serve our readers.”
The work stoppage began at 12:01 a.m. ET Monday “despite multiple rounds of intense bargaining,” the union said. Times workers affiliated with the Tech Guild were set to begin picketing at 9 a.m. outside the 8th Ave. entrance of the paper. The picket line is scheduled to run 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.
The Tech Guild is asking Times readers “to honor the digital picket line and not play popular NYT Games such as Wordle and Connections as well as not use the NYT Cooking app.”
“Our union members and bargaining committee have done everything possible to avoid this ULP strike,” Kathy Zhang, senior analytics manager at the New York Times and unit chair of the Tech Guild, said in a statement. “But management is more willing to risk our election coverage than they are to agree to a fair deal with its workers. They have left us no choice but to demonstrate the power of our labor on the picket line. Nevertheless, we stand ready to bargain and get this contract done.”
In a post on X, Alastair Coote, a member of the Times’ interactive news team, wrote, “Today I’m supposed to be in the NYT newsroom putting the finishing touches on a system pushing live election updates to your phone. But NYT management refuses to give us the same just cause protection our NewsGuild peers have so @NYTGuildTech is on strike.”
In a statement, New York Times Co. SVP of external communications Danielle Rhoades Ha said, “We look forward to continuing to work with the Tech Guild to reach a fair contract that takes into account that they are already among the highest-paid individual contributors in the company and journalism is our top priority. We’re in one of the most consequential periods of coverage for our readers and have robust plans in place to ensure that we are able to fulfill our mission and serve our readers.”
Rhoades Ha added: “While we respect the union’s right to engage in protected actions, we’re disappointed that colleagues would strike at this time, which is both unnecessary and at odds with our mission.”
The union announced the strike as the New York Times Co. announced third-quarter 2024 earnings Monday. During the period, the company said, it added approximately 260,000 net digital-only subscribers sequentially to reach a total number of subscribers of 11.09 million.
The union said Tech Guild workers’ main concerns that remain unresolved are: remote/hybrid work protections; “just cause” job protections, which “the newsroom union has had for decades”; limits on subcontracting; and pay equity/fair pay. The Tech Guild alleged Times management has “engaged in numerous labor law violations, including implementing return-to-office mandates without bargaining and attempting to intimidate members through interrogations about their strike intentions.”
The New York Times Co., in response to the issued the Tech Guild union raised, said in part that it has offered the same “just cause” provisions that the NewsGuild recently agreed to with workers at the Times’ Wirecutter division, which states that “no employee shall be disciplined or discharged except for just and sufficient cause” and that arbitrators should retain their authority to decide whether just cause has been met and whether any disciplinary actions are warranted.
Regarding the union’s “fair pay” demands, the company claimed the Tech Guild’s original proposals would have added more than $100 million to the unit’s total compensation over the life of a three-year contract and pay its members significantly more for fewer hours. The average total compensation (comprising salary, bonus and restricted stock options) of workers repped by the Tech Guild unit is $190,000, which is $40,000 more on average than journalists in the Times Guild, according to the company.
According to the New York Times Co., the average first contract under the current NewsGuild leadership has taken 2.5 years. In the last two decades, the company has negotiated more than 30 contracts — and only contracts negotiated under the current NewsGuild leadership have taken more than two years.
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