Union workers outside The New York Times building on Monday.
Credit...James Estrin/The New York Times

New York Times Tech Workers Go on Strike (Gift Article)

The Times Tech Guild represents more than 600 software developers and others who run the back-end systems behind The Times’s digital operation.

by · NY Times

The Times Tech Guild, which represents workers like software developers and data analysts at The New York Times, went on strike early Monday, just ahead of the busy Election Day news period.

The two sides negotiated until late Sunday. The sticking points in recent days were whether the workers could get a “just cause” provision in their contract, which means they can be terminated only for misconduct or another such reason; pay increases and pay equity; and return-to-office policies.

Times management said in an email to workers on Sunday that it had offered a 2.5 percent annual wage increase, a minimum 5 percent pay increase for promotions and a $1,000 ratification bonus. It also said the company would maintain its current in-office work requirements of two days a week through June, while allowing employees to work fully remotely for three weeks per year.

The guild said in a statement that its members would protest daily outside the company’s headquarters starting at 9 a.m. on Monday.

“They have left us no choice but to demonstrate the power of our labor on the picket line,” Kathy Zhang, the guild’s unit chair, said in the statement. “Nevertheless, we stand ready to bargain and get this contract across the finish line.”

The guild said it was asking readers to honor its digital picket line by not playing Times Games products, such as Wordle, and not using the Cooking app. It added that it had filed numerous unfair labor practice charges against The Times with the National Labor Relations Board over the company’s return-to-office mandates and its attempts to interrogate members about their intentions to strike.

Hannah Yang, the company’s chief growth and customer officer, and Jason Sobel, its chief technology officer, said in an email to the tech workers on Sunday night that management had “a strong offer on the table.”

“We are disappointed that the Tech Guild leadership is attempting to jeopardize our journalistic mission at this critical time,” they said in the email, a copy of which was obtained by The Times.

The Times Tech Guild, the country’s biggest union of tech workers with collective bargaining rights, was certified in a National Labor Relations Board election in March 2022. It has been negotiating for a contract since then.

The union voted on Sept. 10 to authorize the strike with the intention of walking off the job around Election Day, when a jump in readership is expected. The union’s more than 600 members maintain the back-end systems running The Times’s digital operation.

A Times spokeswoman said the company had “robust plans in place to ensure that we are able to fulfill our mission and serve our readers.”

Many New York Times workers are represented by other unions. Times reporters and some editors are part of the Times Guild, while a number of workers at Wirecutter, The Times’s product review website, are also unionized. Those unions, as well as the Times Tech Guild, are affiliated with the News Guild of New York.

Wirecutter Union workers went on a five-day walkout in 2021 over the prime Black Friday shopping weekend to pressure management to agree to a contract. Times reporters and editors held a 24-hour strike in December 2022 over contract negotiations.

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