NY Times Techs Expected To Walk-Off the Job Wednesday

New York Times Co. technology employees plan to walk off the job Wednesday over what they say are the newspaper publisher’s illegal efforts to stymie their unionization campaign, reports Bloomberg.

Workers will stage a half-day stoppage, according to the NewsGuild of New York, the affiliate of the Communications Workers of America that the employees seek to join. They say they began discussing a walkout during a Zoom organizing committee meeting Monday, after learning that Times management is asking the government to exclude staff such as data analysts and designers from a forthcoming vote on unionization.

Tech workers play an important role at large media companies like the Times, which have had to adapt their business models to serve online audiences and advertisers. An escalation in the dispute there could inspire similar activism by nonunion tech staff elsewhere.

“I feel continually let down by the company,” said Times software engineer Vicki Crosson, a member of the organizing committee. “They put themselves forward as sort of a liberal bastion in media. To see them be hypocritical about this is really frustrating.”

The guild, which represents 1,300 editorial and business employees at the Times, publicly unveiled a campaign in April to organize the tech workers and says 70% have signed a petition pledging to vote for the union.

The union has filed several still-pending National Labor Relations Board complaints in recent weeks over what it alleges has been an illegal anti-union campaign by management, including interrogating workers about their activism. In April, Times Chief Executive Officer Meredith Kopit Levien declined the employees’ request to voluntarily recognize their new Times Tech Guild, saying management believes “the right next step” is an election.

After trying unsuccessfully to reach a deal with the company for an electronic vote overseen by a third party, the guild petitioned the U.S. labor board to hold an election among the roughly 600 tech workers it seeks to represent.

Management is asking the agency to restrict the vote to software engineers only, which would shrink the potential bargaining unit by more than a third, according to a union spokesperson.