Greater than 1,100 Recent York Times editorial and support staff staged a 24-hour strike on Thursday. The strike, the primary for the reason that Nineteen Seventies, got here after over one-and-a-half years of unresolved negotiations between the corporate and the NewsGuild of Recent York.
Strikers are demanding wage increases to guard them from inflation, no cuts to their pensions and adequate employer contributions to their health care fund. Also they are calling for distant workplace policies to guard their health amid the continuing pandemic.
The Times, which recorded $220 million in net profits last 12 months, is insisting that employees take a large pay cut in real terms, offering raise guarantees of just 2.75 percent per 12 months amid 7.7 percent inflation. Recent York City was recently designated as the costliest city on the earth to live.
Among the many chants by the 300 employees and supporters on the afternoon rally in front of the Times headquarters was, “We make the paper, we make the profits!” Newsroom employees were joined on the picket line by striking employees on the Murdoch-owned book publisher HarperCollins and The Recent School, Starbucks employees, and Columbia University employees.
A World Socialist Web Site reporting team attended the rally and spoke with striking employees.
Ainara, who has worked on the Times for seven years, said, “We’re fighting for fair wages. The Recent York Times is doing well as an organization, given how poorly we as a complete are doing and have been doing. Our management has been getting raises during the last two years. None of us have been getting raises, so we’re fighting for the pay floor to be raised.
“We’ve been fighting for other things like what happens to our health plans, how much the corporate contributes to the health plans, work at home versus in person, how that’s going to be going into the long run. Those are the massive ones. The pension plan was gutted in favor of a 401k a few years ago. A pension still exists. We were capable of push for the corporate to maintain the pension, at the very least, for the subsequent cycle.”
Marcus, a photograph editor, said, “The corporate’s making numerous profits, which is their business. We’re not asking outrageous demands. We just would love to remain just a little bit ahead of inflation. We don’t appreciate the incontrovertible fact that you [the Times] need to reduce in your health care profit contributions. You killed our pension plan a number of years ago, and now we have an adjusted pension plan, which only pays 3.7 percent last 12 months. They usually need to eliminate that for a 401k plan that they wouldn’t contribute as much to.”
One common concern is the attempt by the Times to institute pay tiers, as has been done already in lots of industries. Marcus said, “One in all the foremost things is the two-tier employment status they need to do now. They need to codify that recent employees are in a second tier, so like, individuals are at all times behind. It’s just not equitable. It’s unconscionable that an organization would try this.”
Maria, a reporter, expressed the necessity to fight for improvements for all work categories. “I’ve been working on the Recent York Times for 3 years. I’m a travel reporter. I used to be a breaking news reporter. The explanation I’m here is to face in solidarity with my fellow Guild members. We should not just fighting for contract raises, for raises which are in our pay, but we’re fighting for our lowest-paid employees to have some form of living wage. A lot of them, you recognize, live in town, an expensive place to live. They’ve been working here for years, they usually make far lower than numerous the reporters that work here. We’re here for them as much as we’re here for everyone else.”
Sirra is a software engineer within the Recent York TimesTech Guild, a separate bargaining unit not currently on strike. She was on the picket line during her lunch in support of the strikers. “I’ve been on the Times for 4 years. I work on the backend systems and applications. These employees are a sibling unit and we’re bargaining with the identical employer on things like returning to working within the office and things that should do with the constructing. In the event that they can get the corporate to maneuver in a direction that we might also like, that may impact our bargaining as well. We won our election for a union in March and have been bargaining already for six months. The Recent York Times is using numerous the identical tactics, stalling, only giving us short bargaining sessions when really we want many hours and sessions a month if we’re going to have a contract in a meaningful timetable.
“A few of a very powerful demands for us a pay equity. Pay transparency is something now we have been asking for a very long time and now that now we have a union we are able to ask to see if there are inequities.
“It just isn’t a lot that the higher-paid employees need to make more as that we would like to be sure that every one the employees are being paid equally for a similar work and lower paid employees are getting paid a justifiable share. Compensation packages are based on level, so we would like to be sure we’re getting equal pay.”
The importance of working class solidarity was a typical theme. When asked about uniting the growing variety of working class struggles, Marcus responded that he welcomed the support the Times employees have received from HarperCollins and Recent School strikers. “Right, we’ve had numerous those people come to support us. We actually appreciate that. If you happen to take into consideration folks that work, we want to unite. Eventually, people should not going to take this.”
Asked concerning the expanding employee strikes and the potential for uniting all these struggles, Sierra said, “This can be a real exciting time in labor. I definitely think, seeing so many individuals coming out in solidarity, seeing so many individuals from CWA [Communications Workers of America], coming together to be with us, and the Teamsters saying they refuse to cross the picket line. There are such a lot of ways to point out solidarity, spread the message that this fight is everyone’s fight, Our sibling unit winning helps us, all of labor winning helps the industry.
“I might like to see a general strike in Recent York. I feel that it’s something that now we have a solidarity committee between us and our newsroom and our wire-cutter unit and I would love to see more of the chief committee also get together and discuss like coordinated motion. That is clearly the best way we win.”
Maria also spoke of the importance of working class unity. “I feel we’re stronger after we are fighting together, these are vital rights. Now we have an important tradition of union, of labor on this country and it’s taking an actual beating through the years and it’s inspiring and it’s encouraging to see people fighting for basic wages, basic living wages and stand strong. Now we have power, but we only have power after we are together.”
Ainara summed up the fundamental sentiment that employees, not corporations, are the inspiration of society. “They’re saying they’ll’t afford to lift our wages, but we make the paper day by day. Without us, there wouldn’t be a paper.”
The strike on the Times is indeed a part of a growing wave of struggles from the HarperCollins and The Recent School strike in Recent York City, to the nearly month-long strike by 48,000 academic employees on the University of California, the two-month strike on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and the week-long strike on the Ft. Value Star-Telegram.
At the identical time, 120,000 railroad employees are in a fight against the Biden administration and the US Congress, which outlawed their strike and imposed a pro-company contract, which employees previously rejected. The struggles within the US are a part of a worldwide resurgence of the category struggle. Within the UK, railroad employees, ambulance drivers, nurses and other employees are fighting threats by the Tory government to dispatch the military to suppress their struggles.
The most important obstacle to uniting these struggles, nevertheless, is the trade union bureaucracy, which within the US in politically allied with the Democratic Party and its program of austerity and war. These are the identical policies promoted by the Recent York Times.
Toward the tip of the rally, Stacy Cowley, a chief negotiator for the NewsGuild, told the gang, “We’ll work hard for a contract. But when talks stall again, we will probably be asking you to your trust and support for further actions. We won’t accept anything less.”
In truth, the trade union officialdom has repeatedly settled for less. That’s the reason newspaper employees must follow the lead of railroader, autoworkers, teachers, nurses and other employees who’re constructing rank-and-file committees to transfer power from the union bureaucracies to the employees themselves.
