New York Times IT Workers Strike on Election Eve
New York Times workers on strike, Nov. 4, 2024. X/ @angelicaadela13
November 4, 2024 Hour: 2:41 pm
They request the inclusion of a clause to protect them from unfair dismissals and pay equity policies for men and women.
On Monday, over 600 software developers and workers who manage digital technical support at The New York Times (NYT) went on strike. The NYT Tech Guild chose to start their walkouts during a period of high news importance, after negotiating with the company until the last hours of Sunday but failing to reach an agreement.
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Among the union’s demands is the inclusion of a clause to protect them from unfair dismissals, so that they can only be terminated for reasons such as misconduct. The workers are also requesting a salary increase and pay equity policies for men and women.
The NYT management informed workers by email that it had offered an annual salary increase of 2.5 percent and a 5 percent increase for promotions. However, the union argued that the measures were insufficient, so they will protest daily in front of the company’s headquarters starting today at 9:00 a.m.
“They’ve left us no choice but to demonstrate the power of our work on the picket lines. However, we are willing to negotiate and bring this contract to a successful resolution,” said Kathy Zhang, the union president.
The NYT Tech Guild stated that it had previously filed “numerous unfair labor practice complaints” against The New York Times with the National Labor Relations Board, citing the company’s orders to return to in-office work after the pandemic and its attempts to pressure employees over their intentions to strike.
Workers in the Wirecutter union, the product-recommendation publication affiliated with The New York Times, went on a five-day strike in 2021 during Black Friday shopping weekend, and a year later, the newspaper’s journalists and editors also picketed to negotiate their terms.
These union controversies have impacted the reputation of one of the New York Times, which in November 2023 saw thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrate at its headquarters, arguing that the U.S. outlet was siding with the genocide committed by Israel in Gaza.
This conflict, along with the outlet’s treatment of issues like transgender rights, also led to the termination of contracts for some writers and columnists who actively engaged with different causes and supposedly lost their sense of neutrality as a result.
Adding to this bad news is the recently announced number of digital subscribers, which fell short of expectations — 260,000 versus the anticipated 300,000 — during a pre-election period typically marked by high media consumption. Meanwhile, the company’s stock dropped a significant 6.7 percent on Monday morning.
teleSUR/ JF Source: EFE
