New York Times tech workers end strike

• As Business Insider first reported, New York Times tech workers are ending their strike after a week-long break.
• The strike threatened to disrupt election coverage but had limited impact on the Times’ work.
• Founded in 2021, the Tech Guild represents more than 600 engineers.

New York Times tech workers end their strike and return to work Tuesday after a week-long walkout.

The Tech Guild chose a crucial day for the strike, the day before the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election, which threatened to jeopardize the newspaper’s important election coverage. Its parent company, the NewsGuild-CWA, called it the “largest tech workers strike in U.S. history.”

But the Times’ website and its famous poll pin, which shows how a race is tipping, worked fine on election night, which could have robbed the guild of some of its influence.

Dozens of technicians crossed the picket line, revealing splinters within the unit. The strike also exposed divisions between the Guild and some Times journalists (represented by another unit of the same NewsGuild in New York) who had previously expressed to BI a lack of compassion for tech workers given their relatively high salaries and potential that the strike affects the station’s core journalistic mission.

The NewsGuild said in a statement that it concluded what it called an “election week strike” after showing Times management the power of its members’ unity. It said the guild received strong support from subscribers and other supporters who showed solidarity by not crossing a digital picket line and donating nearly $260,000 to a strike fund.

The guild said the strike had a number of impacts on election night coverage, such as the absence of state-level voting pins on the website, ads temporarily not displaying and emails from subscribers with broken links.

The guild did not say whether Times management had made any concessions.

A Times spokesperson disputed the union’s claims and said the site’s election performance was its “smoothest” ever. The representative also said that the Times does not review all data for every election, that the newspaper proactively removes ads on high-traffic days and that the problem with email links was due to a vendor.

Founded in 2021, the Tech Guild represents more than 600 engineers. It has been negotiating since 2022 and has been at odds with management on issues such as remote work protections, pay equity, subcontracting restrictions and equitable grounds.

Times Management has countered that it made a strong offer that promised tech workers generous wages and benefits, including total compensation (salary, bonus and restricted stock options) of $190,000 – $40,000 more on average than Times Guild journalists. Under its latest proposal, the Times said, nearly 60% of the unit would have a target compensation package of more than $200,000 next year.

Both sides are expected to resume negotiations at some point.

“We look forward to continuing to work with Tech Guild to reach a fair contract that recognizes that they are already among the highest paid individual employees in the company and that journalism is our top priority,” the Times spokesman said.