The Times Tech Guild – the union that powers the technology behind election coverage at The New York Times, has called a strike due to unfair labour practices (ULP). This strike by the IT team comes on the eve of the 2024 United States presidential election, the 60th quadrennial presidential election, scheduled to be held on Tuesday, November 5. The tech team helps power a lot of the digital elements’ readers turn to daily and especially on big moments like Election Night.
“We are on ULP strike. We gave New York Times management months of notice of our strike deadline, we made ourselves available around the clock, but the company has decided that our members aren’t worth enough to agree to a fair contract and stop committing unfair labor practices,” reads a post from the workers union.
New York times tech team stopped working at 12:01 a.m. ET Monday, despite multiple rounds of intense negotiations and a practice picket that drew over 400 outside The Times headquarters and another 200 remotely on Wednesday. Tech Guild intend to run the picket line from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. This will be outside the Eighth Avenue entrance of The New York Times.
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The tech workers are on strike are also asking readers picket digitally and not play NYT games or use the cooking app. Games to be avoided are such as Wordle and Connections.
Despite the potential disruption to news access during the presidential election due to Tech Guild ULP strike, the union claims the NYT management has not adequately addressed key concerns of tech workers, including remote/hybrid work protections, “just cause” job security (a longstanding benefit for newsroom union members), limitations on subcontracting, and pay equity/fair compensation.
