A joint zine from the Times Guild, the Times Tech Guild and the Wirecutter Union
Explaining Wirecutter’s and the Tech Guild’s walkouts this week, sharing the leaked presentation outlining management’s union-busting strategy, making calls to action to boost the Tech Guild’s press conference Thursday afternoon
OOPSIE! A SNEAK PEEK AT UNION BUSTING tactics
This week, Times management made what we might call an “oopsie.” A lawyer from Proskauer Rose, the union-busting firm they employ, accidentally emailed a Guild staff member a slide deck that offers a glimpse of its legal strategy for handling the Times Tech Guild.
In the image above, Times Tech Guild members have added annotations (on the right side of the slides) for both context and myth busting. The big takeaway is that, out of three different strategies to settle on a unit definition, management chose the most aggressive one, excluding as many tech employees as possible.
It’s worth noting that Hearst Magazines used the same lawyers and the same strategy in an attempt to bust a union campaign at the company in 2019. Proskauer dragged out the process in hearings for nine months. In the end, Proskauer’s tactics didn’t work! Hearst workers ended up winning their NLRB hearing, then winning their union, and Hearst Magazines fired Proskauer after the NLRB election.
It’s easy to be disheartened by the way this deck describes us, but it reinforces how essential it is to stand together. Our union is built on hope for a better workplace — one that reflects our values. With that as our north star, we can’t lose.
THE TECH GUILD WALKED OUT THIS WEEK IN PROTEST
After a string of unfair labor practices, management moves to cut the Times Tech Guild to engineers only
On Wednesday, August 11, members of the Times Tech Guild staged a walkout starting at 12 p.m. ET. This was prompted by a pattern of unfair labor practices (ULPs) that we have seen from the company, including polling union support, preventing our coworkers from showing their support, and spreading misinformation about who is eligible to participate.
In line with the most aggressive option outlined in the leaked Proskauer Rose strategy slides, Times management chose to argue for a unit composed of only engineers. All other tech workers — including product managers, project managers, designers, infosec, assistants, and data analysts — are being segregated out of our unit in an attempt to divide us.
The Times Tech Guild organizing committee learned of the “engineering-only” proposal on Monday, giving us a day or two to organize a small walkout. But as we notified the rest of the unit, we were thrilled to see pledges pour in. We ended up taking a unit-wide action, standing in solidarity with over 300 of our members. Beyond a symbolic gesture, this action showed the strength of our commitment and our willingness to stand up for each other.
Management made their argument official today, August 12, at noon when they replied to the Times Tech Guild’s NLRB filing by submitting a “statement of position.” The statement of position lists management’s arguments for including and excluding workers from the unit by job title.
One of management’s main justifications for its position is that we do not have a shared community of interest because we “have distinct job functions and perform distinct work [and] do not interchange with other employees in the proposed unit.” This is patently untrue. Another of management’s arguments is that nearly half of our unit would be classified as “supervisors.” These are specious arguments that their own slide deck describes as unlikely to succeed. (For context: There are many examples of Times colleagues who are included in the existing Times-Guild and Wirecutter unions when they manage work but do not have hiring and firing power — the job title “senior staff editor,” for one.)
The company has agreed to a mail-in election starting no less than thirty days after the NLRB makes a hearing decision, but the hearing is not scheduled to begin until Friday, August 20th, and it could take months to progress. However, if management becomes willing to negotiate with the Times Tech Guild before then, we may reach a stipulated agreement and avoid the hearing altogether, getting us that much closer to an election.
AN UPDATE FROM WIRECUTTER UNION
After management’s ludicrous wage proposal, Wirecutter walked out this week, too
On Monday, August 9th, Wirecutter Union members walked out on our lunch break to demand fair wages and tell management that we know what we’re worth. There was a wonderful turnout—some members even dropped in from vacation to voice their support—and it was a huge success. We win by showing our collective strength (like how we fought for and won Just Cause last year!) and we plan to keep up this momentum to win fair wages and wrap up our contract.
In the following bargaining session, management presented yet another insulting counter on wages. The proposal moved the floor for band 1 employees to $55,000, and didn’t budge a cent from their previous proposal on the other tiers, staying at $62,000 and $70,000. Under this proposal, just 14 members would receive raises—eleven in band 1, three in band 2, and none in band 3—averaging just $1,962 each for a grand total of $27,464 added to payroll. The bargaining committee pushed back strongly against management’s inadequate proposal, which doesn’t do nearly enough to close the massive wage gap between our members and our colleagues across the company.
Management also continues to refuse our proposals for guaranteed yearly raises and a more equitable bonus plan, despite admitting that it wouldn’t be “overly burdensome” to implement. They stated they’re simply “not interested in keeping track of” another plan.
Wrapping up this contract and winning fair wages, guaranteed yearly increases, and a more equitable bonus structure is clearly going to be a fight. Our lunch walkout was a powerful step! We’re prepared to take further actions to keep the pressure on management — we know what we’re worth and we won’t settle for less. We’d appreciate as much cross-shop solidarity on these future actions as we can get!
WHAT DOES THE NEWSROOM GUILD THINK ABOUT MANDATORY VACCINATION AND RTO?
In the company’s latest email about returning to the office, chief human resources officer, Jacqui Welch, said: “We strongly encourage people to get vaccinated, which is the right thing to do for your own health and the health of the broader community.” Our union’s position is the same, full stop.
In fact, on Aug. 6, we rolled out a survey (subject line “Guild Survey on Return-to-Office and Mandatory Vaccination,” please check your emails!) that said in big bold letters, “We urge all members to get vaccinated if possible.” We explained that the purpose of the survey was getting a better idea of how many members are vaccinated or intend to be vaccinated, and whether you, our members, would support a company-wide vaccine mandate.
Such a mandate as a condition of employment would mean those who don’t comply get fired — something that is already happening at other companies. This is a pretty drastic consequence, and there is a role for our union here in doing the — as ever, nuanced and thankless — work of figuring out how to balance protecting our members’ health and protecting your jobs. For instance, the company has in some cases arbitrarily granted work-from-home exceptions. Could there be a case where a person who isn’t vaccinated could actually work remotely full-time? This is one of many situations we want to consider.
Essentially: Our union should be the safeguard against the company taking disciplinary action without clearly spelling out the rules and potential consequences, and in making sure all of those are reasonable.
Right now, we are still in the process of gathering that data to come up with our nuanced position. But we are certainly not resisting vaccination! We ask for your patience while we collect the data from you and use it to come up with our position. Either way, we firmly believe return to office and remote work are things that the company must have a conversation with us in the bargaining process; management does not have the right to unilaterally impose policies on the workforce without having a meaningful exchange with the union.
✅ On your to-do list (Times-Guild folks only): Please, please, please answer the guild’s RTO and mandatory vaccination survey! Again, the subject line is “Guild Survey on Return-to-Office and Mandatory Vaccination” and the sender is info@nyguild.org.
JOIN US!
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, memeing, interviewing, programming, designing, printing or performing any other skill you have. Have an idea? Email thetable.nyt@gmail.com.
Standing together,
The Table