Tech Workers At the New York Times Have Formed a Union (theverge.com) 59
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Tech workers at The New York Times have formed a union under the NewsGuild of New York, and they are demanding voluntary recognition from the paper's management. The new union, called the Tech Times Guild, represents more than 650 workers from the digital side of the company, including software engineers, designers, and data analysts. Those employees are not included in the editorial union of The New York Times, which represents more than 3,000 reporters and media professionals at the newspaper and is also organized under NewsGuild. The editorial union has historically excluded employees on the digital side of the paper, even as the company has expanded into more ambitious data and digital work. As a result, the Tech Times Guild is seeking a separate bargaining unit, which would negotiate separately with the Times management. "As of now, we face a number of challenges," the Tech Times Guild said in a statement on Twitter, "including sudden or unexplained termination, opaque promotion processes, unpaid overtime, and underinvestment in diverse representation. Without a union, we lack the data or bargaining rights to address these issues."
The Times has not formally responded to the union's request for recognition. "Voluntary recognition is a significant decision," The New York Times Company said in a statement. "We have heard questions from colleagues such as what a union would mean for staff, who might be included in the union, and how colleagues would have a say in who might represent them. We want to make sure all voices are heard."
The Times has not formally responded to the union's request for recognition. "Voluntary recognition is a significant decision," The New York Times Company said in a statement. "We have heard questions from colleagues such as what a union would mean for staff, who might be included in the union, and how colleagues would have a say in who might represent them. We want to make sure all voices are heard."
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Unsubscribe?
Contact them to be removed from their lists?
Write a mail rule to automatically delete?
Add domain to mail provider's spam list?
No no, let's instead randomly make a comment on a NYT article asking. Yes, that'll solve the problem.
Well, with the NYT being a left leaning entity.. (Score:3, Funny)
Layoffs coming... (Score:3, Funny)
Time to hire an Indian tech consultancy!
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And lower starting salaries if there will be guaranteed raises. Possibly no raises outside of the one set by the union and lower bonuses (to cover the next year's raises).
I can't imagine being in a union when I have so much negotiation power outside of it. A union only incentivizes a company to provide the bare minimum outlined in the union contract. That works blue-collar jobs, but not so much for trade professionals whose pay is generally based on their skills.
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How many union contacts allow the employer to pay people more than what's written into the contract? I thought they usually required a strictly seniority-based pay scheme, but always required compensation to follow what the union contract says rather than allow employer discretion.
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I'll repeat myself (see my previous comment). There is no reason that a union contract requires strict seniority-based pay. See the baseball union for a good example.
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A union doesn't prevent negotiating for salary, etc. If you want a good example for something that has been around for years, look at the Baseball Union. Some of their members are (most probably - I don't know your personal financial details) much better paid than you will ever be. So it obviously depends upon the details of the union agreement, not the fact that it is a union. Indeed, baseball players are much better paid because the union exists. Before it existed, most of the profits went to the owners a
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"I have so much negotiating power outside of one".
ROTFLMAO!!!!, says the recently-retired programmer and sr. sysadmin.
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Unions (Score:1)
They are good for jobs that can be replaced with medium quality AI and robotics.
They'll do that anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
I've read more than one story of China telling it's factories they can't automate because it would cause too much social disruption. Spare a thought for what that means: Robots are cheaper than Chinese slave labor.
Never, ever except permanently worse living conditions in exchange for temporary promises of job security. You will always regret that path.
Re: It is amazing how many feel (Score:2)
I live in a house, that I financed, but ultimately the bank owns right now. And if I have a heart attack, an ambulance will show up to take care of me.
Living inside civilization is not the same as bowing to the great Red Menance of "socialism". People *normally* depend on others.
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Homer: You didn't build this House, you won it in a crooked 50s game show.
Abe: I ratted on everybody and got off scot free!
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The one I love is people who whine about having a socialist healthcare system where they have to pay for other people who get sick. They just want regular old health insurance, where you only pay for yourself!
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Having lived under the UK Socialistic Healthcare System, I oppose Socialistic Healthcare. The objections include
(1) poor healthcare with no choice to go to another, better provider or system
(2) crazy administrative systems that placed pediatricians in a general practitioner role & a general practitioner in a pediatrician position & an orthopedic surgeon delivering babies. Crazy stuff like that.
(3) Lack of medical equipment. I lived in Memphis, TN when the metro area
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Having lived under the UK Socialistic Healthcare ...
No you didn't you liar.
Re: It is amazing how many feel (Score:4, Interesting)
That was really funny!!!
It wasn't really intended as funny, and I get the feeling that you're being facetious anyway. The fundamental point is that people opposed to any sort of "socialist" government healthcare system often use the objection that they should not be forced to pay for the healthcare of other people who might be sicker than them, but they tend to have no problem with private health insurance. Private health insurance, of course, is all about people paying for the healthcare of others who are sicker than them. It's the way pooled risk works. All insurance is like that. So the fundamental objection they have makes no sense.
As far as your objections to the UK healthcare system, it seems like a simple rebuttal to your first point is that private health insurance is actually available in the UK
For your 3rd point, you seem to have gotten confused between the UK and Canada, which makes me doubt your claim to have "lived under the UK Socialistic Healthcare System". Also, your claim about one US city having more imaging machines than the entire country of Canada seems a bit dubious by itself. Did you count them? Or do you have some sort of actual citation for that?
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Undoing erroneous mod.
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More details needed (Score:2)
The new union, called the Tech Times Guild, represents more than 650 workers from the digital side of the company
What does "represents" mean when the NYT doesn't recognize their guild? And how many declined to join? Coming on the heels of the Amazon vote in which only 16% of the workers voted to join the union, I doubt this will go very far.
Demanding voluntary... (Score:2)
they are demanding voluntary recognition from the paper's management
I think this right here is a pretty clear example of what's so screwed up about many union groups.
"We demand that you accept our union without us having to prove everyone actually wants to be in it." Assholes.
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If Tech workers had a Union (Score:2, Interesting)
Unions should be mandatory and universal. That way they would form a new power structure to provide balance against Government and the mega-corps. As it stands the mega-corps buy off the government and us regular Joes can do fuck all about it. We need something on the side, another power we can wield in addition to our votes. But the only way to get that is, like C
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Unions should be mandatory and universal.
Not everyone wants that bullshit. Don't force the rest of us to drown in your kool-aid.
Not everybody wants to be a Citizen (Score:1)
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I didn't say I'm against cooperation and support.
We live in a free society---forcing something like that one everyone would be a Bad Thing.
Also: It's not clear to me at all what "mandatory and universal" unions have to do with citizenship. Those are two entirely separate concepts.
You're forced to do things in society all the time (Score:2)
The parallel I'm drawing is that you don't get a say in being a Citizen. Not without leaving the country.
You're having a hard time seeing the parallels because you've been a Citizen for so long you can't imagine living in American and *not* being one.
you're just picking Unions as something you don't want to be made to do because you don't like them.
As for why they should be mandatory and universal, because they're powerless
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You're having a hard time seeing the parallels because you've been a Citizen for so long you can't imagine living in American and *not* being one.
I've lived in other countries, too, whereby citizenship is not something just taken for granted, thanks very much. I'm not having trouble seeing the parallel because my imagination is stifled. I'm having trouble because it's a poor parallel.
The US government sets pretty loose guidelines for agreements between people paying for services and the people providing said services. I don't think there's any reason why an agreement I make with my employer should be superseded by an agreement some other coworkers (a
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If you're looking for a solution where workers have more say, you should be looking at things like employee-owned companies.
Do you mean, something where the workers control the means of production? Because there's another name for that, one which isn't very popular in America.
Personally, I think it's a great idea. Just saying, as someone who is a US citizen and has spent a lifetime in technical trades. And coincidentally has spent a lifetime getting screwed over by every local two-bit sharp operator on his way to his next million $$$.
If bosses weren't assholes, unions wouldn't be necessary. A hundred years ago, people *died* so
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You are that desperate for your job/company to move to India?
They cost $1.50 /hr (Score:2)
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With unions, you'll be at the bottom, so in a sense you're correct.
If your job could be done in India, it would be! (Score:1)
You are that desperate for your job/company to move to India?
Cut the crap. If your job COULD be done in India (for cheaper), it would. If you have a job, it's because they haven't figured out a way to offshore it profitably. Fuck off with the FUD. When a manager tells you that, it's a power play. Companies, especially tech ones, are sociopaths. They will offshore your job in a heartbeat if they could. It turns out nothing is more expensive than a cheap programmer and India has the same shortages everyone else has. If India had someone worth hiring, they'd be
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Please, put away your inner Stalin and Hitler... the vast majority of tech workers don't want to be part of a union, and for good reason. We don't need corrupt mob-run organizations affiliated with the Democratic Party attempting to run our work lives based on their know-nothing vision of how to represent you. We certainly don't need you forcing those parasites down our throats.
You don't understand anything about Unions (Score:2)
You know not what you speak of. It's 2021, you don't even need to read. Go watch some Thought Slime and a few documentaries on Unions.
Re: You don't understand anything about Unions (Score:2)
I've read the union propaganda before. The reality is that most of what unions attempt to take credit for was already standard practice because of wealth increases leading to employer/employee changes without unions in the middle.
Unions may have accelerated some corner cases, but they also prevented many people from being employed (especially along racial lines) and have primarily been about lining their organized crime leader's pockets while funneling protection money to politicians.
Currently, teachers uni
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I am happy to join a union if it will benefit me. I will even join one if it benefits enough of my coworkers, but doesn't benefit me.
So far I haven't seen such a union available in the tech industry.
That's why they need to be mandatory (Score:2)
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Unions only make you strong if they actually represent you. There are good unions and bad unions in the world. I'll pass on the bad unions.
Time (Score:1)
Its about time.
Seriously...
Finally. (Score:3)
That the NYT may have to deal with a union in the coming months is the best news I've heard all year.
Give the union a year or two and the NYT will be right of Reuters, and NY will be on its way to being a red state. It couldn't have happened to a more deserving newspaper.
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This union thing might have legs? (Score:1)
Maybe there really could be a worker's paradise?
Maybe this time it'll be different?
Could I have daily LOC and code check in requirements, please?
Those metrics really need to come back; my boss doesn't recognize my hard work.
Can I chose my language of choice?
COBOL? No? OK, how about SNOWBALL, FORTRAN, or PASCAL? Still No? Non-ANSI C is as far as I go, boss.
Code Comments: REQUIRED ON EVERY LINE WITHOUT EXCEPTION! //Example: If
To help my fellow devs understand how the code works [team harmony built into code]
Almost had me (Score:2)
"underinvestment in diverse representation"
So this isn't a tech workforce finally pursuing unionization and voluntary professional regulation. It is just another wing of the same racist cult that has been infiltrating everything since around 2012.
Every worker needs a union (Score:2)
If you have to work for a living, you're a worker. If you're a worker, you need a union.