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New York Times tech union ends weeklong strike with no contract in hand: 'The vibes are not good'
By Kendall Tietz
Published November 11, 2024
New York Times tech workers will return to work Tuesday without a contract, following a weeklong strike during election week.
The New York Times Tech Guild members plan to "march into the office together in the morning as a symbol of what’s to come for The Times." Union members told Fox News Digital that they haven't heard from leadership since their last counter-proposal on Sunday, Nov. 3.
The union began their strike the next day, right before Election Day, after they failed to reach an agreement with leadership following over two years of negotiations. The Tech Guild is fighting for "just cause, fair pay and remote work protection." The group represents the 700 members that support the technological operations of the paper's online platforms, as well as New York Times games like Wordle and Connections and the Cooking app.
"Our Election Week ULP Strike was a warning to The Times," Kathy Zhang, Tech Guild unit chair and a senior analytics manager at The New York Times said of the news in a press release provided to Fox News Digital. "We clearly demonstrated how valuable our work is to The New York Times, especially on election night, and showed that we have the full support of subscribers and allies across the country going forward."
New York Times' New York City headquarters (Bloomberg/Contributor)
Because of the strike, no state-level or non-presidential needles were live on election night, IOS news was not displaying ads intermittently, marking a significant loss of revenue for the company, the apps and website were slow to load, publishing issues produced error messages for readers on articles and updates and Times subscribers received hundreds of thousands of emails with broken links, according to the NYT Tech Guild announcement.
"The systems and digital products that worked over the election did so thanks to the hundreds of unit members who worked for months preparing everything to run smoothly," Zhang said. "What broke down during this strike broke because our members weren’t at work."
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A NYT spokesperson confirmed to Fox News Digital that negotiations are no further along than they were when the strike began, but described last week's election coverage as "by far our smoothest site performance during an election ever."
Union members strike outside the Times building. (Fox News Digital)
"From Tuesday to Thursday, the Presidential Election Results page and Needle page were viewed more than any other piece across The Times's entire site (in a 3 day period) since the 2020 elections, a four year high," a NYT spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "Tens of millions of views, more than 3x our average daily readership over the past few months.
Stacy Cowley, a Times business reporter and News Guild representative, told Fox News Digital that "the vibes are not good" between union members and leadership.
"The last week was rough, and illustrated what happens when The Times tries to operate without more than 500 of our Tech Guild colleagues," she said. "It also showed the anger and frustration we in the newsroom feel about the company’s yearslong and ongoing fight to deny our coworkers the same job protections the newsroom has had for generations."
"I hope the company comes to the table and finishes this fast, so it can begin the hard work of regaining our trust and repairing the very battered morale that’s evident to everyone at NYT," she added.
NEW YORK TIMES TECH WORKER STRIKE STRETCHES INTO ELECTION DAY
The union repeatedly accused the paper’s top executives of union busting, in particular CEO Meredith Kopit Levien and Chief Technology Officer Jason Sobel.
Members of The New York Times news division stood in solidarity with tech employees on strike during Election Day 2024. (Fox News Digital)
Levien wants employees to "settle for crumbs" while she earned $10.3 million last year, according to the billboard the group had on display last week. The Guild has also accused Sobel of attempting to "force remote tech workers back to the office" while he "works remotely from Silicon Valley."
They "made the conscious decision to put Times journalism at risk on election night rather than come to the bargaining table and work with us to get this contract completed," Anthony Napoli, NewsGuild of NY treasurer, said. "Our members will continue the fight until a fair contract is secured. We will accept nothing less."
The New York Times told Fox News Digital that they "look forward to continuing to work with 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."
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Fox News Digital’s Brian Flood and Nikolas Lanum contributed to this report.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/new-york-times-tech-union-ends-week-long-strike-no-contract-hand-the-vibes-not-good