Pretty Please: NY Times Newsroom Threatens Walkout Over Pay Dispute
“If they don’t get enough of a salary bump, they’re going to stop working for 24 hours next Thursday.”
Unionized workers at the New York Times are threatening a walkout for one day next week due to a dispute over pay. This is the sort of news that causes panic in beltway media while millions of Americans shrug.
The NYT newsroom is threatening to walk off the job next week. https://t.co/dOlNpjOxmU
— Shawn McCreesh (@ShawnMcCreesh) December 2, 2022
From NY Mag:
The New York Times Newsroom Gets Ready to Walk Out
This morning at 8 a.m., New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien received a letter from Bill Baker, unit chair of the Times guild, that was signed by more than 1,000 employees. Subject line: “Enough. If there is no contract by Dec. 8, we are walking out.”
Back in September, I wrote about how the unionized staff and management hadn’t come to terms on a new labor contract and were threatening to do something like, well, what this letter has finally threatened to do. For months, the newsroom has been pressing its publisher for a bigger share of the Times’ profits, but it turns out the guy whose predecessors were nicknamed Punch and Pinch is no pushover. So now they’ve decided to give the boss a hard deadline. The letter demands a weeklong marathon bargaining session over health-care funds and return-to-office policies and their pension plan. But what the employees really want is permanent increases in base pay. If they don’t get enough of a salary bump, they’re going to stop working for 24 hours next Thursday.
A walkout is technically a strike, though one with an end date. There was a one-hour walkout over a lapsed contract in 2011, and another quick afternoon walkout in 2017 over copy editors being eliminated. But those were mostly shows of solidarity. What the employees are preparing to do next week would be something not seen at the paper of record since 1978. Picture it: a full day without the New York Times. No one covering the tumult in Guangzhou or inside Buckingham Palace or what our president is saying. From midnight to midnight, no reporting, no filing stories, no podcasting, no comment moderating, and definitely no responding to editors’ queries.
I’m willing to bet that there are millions of Americans who can imagine a day without the New York Times, perhaps not even noticing that their crew of social justice warriors stopped complaining about America.
Are we really supposed to view this as a bad thing?
That's not a threat. https://t.co/n5kXKrJ2UF
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) December 2, 2022
Stay strong Do not cave. Under any circumstances. Walk out and strike. For months if need be. They can't silence us all. #Solidarity #unionproud https://t.co/ZWq9pzMtrh
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) December 2, 2022
These folks should take all the time they need.
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Comments
“Walk don’t run”
If a strike happens at the NY Times, how could we tell the difference?
None of us who noticed Jayson Blair and the many other published stories that were mostly made up and true stories that were spiked are likely to notice, because we aren’t reading this rag anyway. However, management is terrified of how many regular readers will miss a day and realize how little that mattered…
They should just stop working forever
My first thought: Don’t just take a day, take a week – or a month – or why limit yourselves?
Progressive prices are equitable and inclusive. Welcome.
Meanwhile, the ex-Twitters lament blue-collar accountability, and so quickly forget labor arbitrage through insourcing and outsourcing. #YouToo
Reminds me of the scene in Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy (original BBC radio version) where the representatives from the Philosophers’ guild threaten to go on strike unless the Deep Thought supercomputer is unplugged.
To which Deep Thought asks, “And who would that inconvenience?”
They will not got on any prolonged strike. They are an important part of the State’s Ministry of [Dis]Information and will not be silenced.
Subotai Bahadur
Let them leave
Would it help if we threw molotovs?
Because I’m free Monday.
Somehow life will go on as if nothing happened.
Actually, I think the world would be a measurably better place.
OK, bye.
A labor shutdown at the NYT? We can only hope.
So?
.
Are we seeing a new trend developing here? Under the Biden Administration we know inflation is causing significant pain points for all consumers especially in NYC where apartment rents are at all time highs.
First we had the train workers unions and now the NYT union members are threatening to strike. Who will be next? Autoworkers, hospitality, hotel, restaurants service sector workers?
Union leaders want a bigger piece of the pie. Could it be that various unions are planning to hold the most friendly president to unions Uncle Joe as their hostage.?
Perhaps Biden will sign legislation to prevent the loss of such an “essential” public service, much as he did for the railworkers….
This morning at 8 a.m., New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien received a letter from Bill Baker, unit chair of the Times guild, that was signed by more than 1,000 employees. Subject line: “Enough. If there is no contract by Dec. 8, we are walking out.”
==========
Reply Letter to Bill Baker, unit chair of the Times guild, signed by A.G. Sulzberger and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien. Subject Line: Termination of employment of you and the more than 1,000 employees that signed the letter if you go through with Thursday’s walk out.
But of course, that will never happen.
Replace them with illegal aliens.
How much worse could it be?
How can we miss them when they won’t go away?
Guaranteed, sometime before the walkout happens, the Times will run a story about how “minorities and women will be affected most”.
“Pretty Please” … love it!
“You’ll have a national Philosopher’s strike on your hands!”