NY Times newsroom union hits management for denying new membership: ‘They have never been good partners’

After the editorial staff of the New York Times-owned Athletic declared their desire To join the newspaper’s news union, management informed the Times Guild on Thursday that they would not honor their request.

“The management’s decision is not a surprise, considering The New York Times“A long history of union busting,” the Times Guild said in response to the news. [NLRB] and that process is going forward. Sports jobs are Times Guild jobs. It’s that simple.”

“Instead of doing right by its athletic employees, Times management continues to pretend that it operates separate newsrooms in an effort to maintain a two-tiered system that disempowers athletic employees,” the union said.

The New York Times acquired the online sports news site in 2022, and while management initially insisted The Athletic’s operations would be separate, they have been integrated into the newsroom, the union said in a news release.

AS A RESULT OF THE CHANGED NEGOTIATIONS, THE FOUNDATION MEMBERS WERE DISMISSED FROM THE WORK OF NEWSPAPERS IN 2024.

The New York Times building is seen in Manhattan, New York, U.S., on August 3, 2020.

The Athletic was founded in 2016 as a subscription-based, ad-free sports website that would appeal to die-hard fans of various teams, but ultimately struggled to turn a profit without advertising and was acquired by The New York Times it for $550 million.

Times management has closed The New York Times sports desk in September 2023, and the work was assigned to a Times staff member assigned to The Athletic. organized to become part of the Times Guild.

Stacey Cawley, a New York Times business reporter and an elected officer of the Times Guild, told Fox News Digital that when a reader opens the sports section in print, they will see Athletic stories.

“The way management has communicated with them has created support for unionization and joining the Times Guild,” he said. :

“I think the staff at the Athletic felt a lot about the erosion of their independent identity and their growth in being treated as a New York Times unit, and it created a real momentum among their staff to say, “Well, if we are New York. Times employees who work for the New York Times, then we should be part of the New York Times Union Guild and have the benefits and protections of that contract,” he added.

The NewsGuild of New York has three “bargaining units” or unions at The New York Times, including The Times Guild, with about 1,500 news, business and support staff, the Wirecutter Union, with about 100 editorial staff , and the Tech Guild. , which includes about 700 tech.

The News Guild is confident it has a strong case to present to the NLRB, Cole said.He also criticized management members who told The Athletic they would be good partners in their union efforts.

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The New York Times office in Midtown Manhattan (iStock / iStock)

“They’ve never been good partners in this,” he said. “They’re going to go completely independent. They waited until three or four weeks after we closed the 2023 contract, and they turned around and closed the sports table, and we all knew about that time.”

“It was a pretty pointed move, they didn’t bring it up in contract negotiations, they waited until we closed the deal and then dropped the news on us a month later,” he added. was their answer. “Oh, we had no plans to do that.”

Now, he said, the members are left with the possibility that either they made a sincere decision to close the news desk in a few weeks, with no previous plans to do so, “which is not a great sign of their ability to predict” or “they lied to us and knew all along that’s what they were going to do and waited until we closed the deal to do it.”

“They haven’t built a lot of confidence in their employees about how they work with the union,” he added.

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Now they’re waiting to hear what the NLRB says, Cole said.The Athletics have a hearing scheduled for next week.

NYT union members on picket line. (Getty Images)

“The period where there’s a big question mark is what comes after that, because how long it takes for the board to make their decision is very variable,” he said.

Cowley also hit out at the Times editorial board, which has consistently taken many union positions.

“The New York Times is a large, publicly traded company with very highly paid executives, and they recognize that union contracts transfer some power to workers, and very few companies go along with that voluntarily,” he said.

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Publisher of The Athletic David Perpich told employees On Thursday, he believed the best approach was for the site’s reporters to have a separate bargaining unit within the NewsGuild.

“The editorial office of The Athletic is completely independent from The Times, under separate management,” he wrote. “This distinction has allowed us to maintain policies and practices specific to the needs of sports coverage both nationally and locally. It has enabled us to maintain our unique workplace culture and deliver our distinctive best-in-class journalism for fans .

“Furthermore, The Athletic needs to be an economically viable business that can financially support what has become one of the largest newsrooms with more than 500 reporters. We’ve made progress toward that ambition, but we still have a long way to go to Standalone Contracts.” and a bargain division is the best way to maintain the size and strength of our newsroom and achieve further growth.”

Fox News Digital has reached out to the New York Times for comment.