The New York Times Tech Guild ended their strike Monday despite not reaching an improved contract deal with the paper, but promised to “move the fight inside” after their absence was felt on Election Night with numerous glitches.
A statement released by the guild Monday, which represents more than 600 software developers and data analysts at the paper, called the strike “successful,” citing that their walkout meant that the Times’ election needle was not live on Election Night, apps were slow to load and emails contained “hundreds of thousands of broken links.”
Kathy Zhang, Tech Guild union chair and senior analytics manager at the Times, wrote in the statement that the Election Week Strike “showed that we have the full support of subscribers and allies across the country going forward.”
“Instead of bargaining with Tech Guild, Times’ executives stubbornly put a critically important Election Day at risk … What broke down during this strike broke because our members weren’t at work,” Zhang wrote.
A tweet shared to the Guild’s X page on Monday promised “we’ll move our fight inside.”
“A warning to The Times: Tuesday, we will be returning to work, after a successful Election Week ULP Strike. We clearly demonstrated how valuable our work is to @nytimes,” the note read.
Ahead of the walkout, the guild wrote on X that they “gave the 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.”
The main issues at stake, according to the Times’ report, comes down to pay increases, return-to-office policies and whether union members can get a “just cause” provision in their contract, barring them from being fired unless it’s for “misconduct or another such reason.”
