Earlier this month, hundreds of us rallied at The Times building and online to protest the company’s unfair labor practices. Today at 2:30PM ET, join a virtual rally to support Wirecutter Union during their walkout. Fill out this form if you’d like to be added to the calendar invite!
FROM WIRECUTTER UNION: YOUR GUIDE TO THE STRIKE
Wirecutter Union members are on strike from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, because Times management has not agreed to a fair contract. Every single one of our members—yes, 100%!—agreed to walk out during our busiest and most profitable time of the year, when we would normally be putting in hundreds of hours of overtime during this shopping weekend. We rely on this money to pay our bills, fund holiday travel, and more. You can support us by donating to our GoFundMe to offset our lost income during the strike and by signing our pledge not to cross our digital picket line.
Wirecutter has been wildly successful, especially over the two years we’ve been bargaining this contract, and continues to bring in record revenue for the Times. But the company has slow-walked contract negotiations with unfair labor practices and insignificant wage offers that severely underpay our staff.
The salary floor increases we’re seeking, spread across our 65-person unit, amount to only about $300,000. That’s just 0.029% of the $1.04 billion The Times has in cash. Besides denying our salary floor proposals, Times management has offered paltry guaranteed wage increases of only 1%, despite soaring inflation and cash flows. Our total wage proposals, while a real improvement over the status quo, still set the median salary of Wirecutter Union members at $39,000 less than that of our unionized colleagues in the newsroom.
Times management refused to accept any of the nine bargaining dates (including nights and weekends) we offered before Black Friday to avoid this strike. Our colleagues in the Times Guild Bargaining Committee even offered to donate their November 22nd session to us, but management declined.
We’re disappointed that leadership has chosen to dump the heavy workload of Cyber Week on middle managers and contract workers, rather than meet us at the table to finish this contract and avert our strike. We want to help our readers. We want to do our jobs. But we want—and deserve—to be paid a fair wage for that work.
Once again:
THE TIMES TECH GUILD SAYS MANAGEMENT SHOULD BARGAIN WITH WIRECUTTER
The federal government says management should stop breaking the law
We stand in solidarity with the Wirecutter Union. In their fights—to set equitable pay floors, to guarantee annual raises, to win stronger DEI standards, to cap healthcare costs, to ban non-disclosure agreements—Wirecutter Union is setting precedents that will make us stronger when we bargain a first contract of our own. We are more determined than ever to win recognition, not only for the sake of a strong contract, but to further establish solidarity with our union siblings in Wirecutter and across the Times. Wirecutter Union may be smaller than us, but today and always, their fight is our fight, too.
It bears repeating: the wage floors that Wirecutter Union proposes would amount to about $300,000 in raises. For the company, that’s less than 0.029% of more than $1 billion cash on hand. For workers, it is life-changing money. In 2019, The New York Times paid a single executive $300,000 as a cash bonus for Wirecutter's financial performance. The company should pay the workers whose hard work and good judgement make Wirecutter valuable in the first place. With so much money available, the company's refusal to bargain looks more than anything like determination to limit workers' democratic power.
We've seen the same thing for ourselves. The company has waged an expensive campaign to fight us every step of the way in our bid for recognition. From the beginning, the company's union busting has disrespected our majority. This month, the federal government found that management also broke the law.
The National Labor Relations Board informed New York Times management that they broke the law when they asked one of our members, Bon Champion, to cease showing public support for the union. We are deeply disappointed that enforcement was necessary. We hope the ruling sends a message to New York Times executives that we will not tolerate illegal activity. We are grateful that Bon stood up for his rights so that everyone can feel safe showing their union support at work.
We will continue to stand up to the company’s union busting tactics, whatever form they take. In just the past few weeks, members of our unit have been approached by their direct managers for one-on-one presentations of the company's position against our union, in a push that we understand to be coordinated by top management.
It’s one thing for a worker to ask their manager about the union. It’s a very different thing when the person responsible for a year-end performance review initiates the conversation and encourages their direct report to vote no. This is why when 70% of us said in August that we would vote to form a union, we also asked that management not engage in this behavior.
Members of our unit have the right to not discuss the union with managers and to decline these meetings. It is illegal for management to poll union support. If you have been in a situation with your manager that made you feel uncomfortable or was potentially illegal, reach out to an organizing committee member!
If anyone is looking for a refresher, read about your right to organize and how to spot illegal union busting.
If the company’s tactics sound familiar, remember that they are not unique to The New York Times. As John Oliver surveyed in a recent segment on union busting, companies across the country are running the same tired playbook, because workers across the country are standing up for what we deserve.
Today, all of us can stand up to union busting by standing with Wirecutter. If you haven't yet, this is a great time to update your Slack avatar to include a Guild frame and change your slack status to include a message in support of Wirecutter. Sign the pledge, donate to the strike fund, and join the rally this afternoon!
TIMES GUILD: MANAGEMENT’S REFUSAL TO BARGAIN WITH WIRECUTTER IS NOT A MATTER OF TIME
The Times Guild bargaining committee, standing in unity with Wirecutter, offered to donate its Nov. 22 bargaining session to Wirecutter so management and the union could work out a fair contract before Black Friday—and avert the ongoing strike. But management refused this offer, and instead began to train middle managers to do the jobs of the Wirecutter staff over the holiday weekend.
It is notable that the company has refused the offer to bargain with Wirecutter over a mere $300,000 in raises spread across 67 workers in the Wirecutter unit—the equivalent of about two newsroom reporter salaries—while $1 billion in cash on hand sits in The New York Times’ bank account. We in the Times Guild unequivocally support the Wirecutter union’s efforts, and call on management to return to the table to settle a fair contract now.
Meanwhile, all of the Times Guild bargaining committee’s proposals have been put on the table, and the vast majority of them have gone unanswered. After all of us spoke out about our right to observe the bargaining process, we’ve seen some more movement from management and responses to proposals on intellectual property. The company will move, if we push them. It’s on all of us to keep pushing. That includes the Times Guild’s own proposal on wages, which management has repeatedly declined to touch—at a time when there is record inflation in the U.S. in the midst of an ongoing pandemic.
The bargaining committee has been at the table for nine months without substantial movement on most of its proposals. It is time for management to stop delaying, and get on with bargaining— including bargaining over wages. It is crucial that our members get paid their due.
FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: GET INVOLVED!
As part of the dues campaign this summer, the NewsGuild of New York Executive Committee committed to convening a working group of members from around the local. This group will be tasked with reviewing our governance structures and proposing potential changes, including a subgroup that will review and discuss finances with the EC. Remember that The Guild is not a third party—it is all of us! This is the best way to have a direct impact on the future of our union.
We are looking to convene a diverse group of members who can commit to meet twice a month for several months. If you’re interested, please introduce yourself!
The deadline to raise your hand is November 30. Meetings will begin in January 2022. The anticipated benchmark for recommended governance changes to the EC is April, followed by a local-wide referendum to vote on any changes by June 2022.
RIDE WITH THE TABLE!
The Table is a collaborative zine made up of members from the Times Tech Guild, the Wirecutter Union, and the Times Guild. It’s an experiment in how we can all talk to each other and make our workplaces better. Please get in touch if you’d like to pitch in with writing, reporting, illustrating, interviewing, programming, designing, printing, or any other skill. Have an idea? Email thetable.nyt@gmail.com.
✊ Art by Tamara Chevlen
In solidarity,
The Table