NewsGuild of New York, NY Times reach tentative agreement on historic first tech contract | The NewsGuild – TNG-CWA

For Immediate Release: Dec.11, 2024
Contact: Jen Sheehan, jen@nyguid.org, 610-573-0740

The three-year agreement sets new standards for tech industry, including “just cause” protections, guaranteed raises, and guardrails on remote-work status

NEW YORK – The NewsGuild of New York, which represents the Times Tech Guild, and New York Times management have reached a tentative deal on a three-year contract, just over a month after the Tech Guild’s election week ULP strike.

The tentative agreement is the first for the Times Tech Guild, the largest union of tech workers with collective bargaining rights in the country. The Times Tech Guild is a bargaining unit of The NewsGuild of New York, which represents nearly 6,000 media workers including two other units at The New York Times.

“We’re thrilled to reach an agreement that secures ‘just cause’ protections, sustains workplace flexibility, and guarantees annual raises for our members,” said Kathy Zhang, a Senior Analytics Manager at The New York Times and unit chair of the Tech Guild. “These first contract wins set a strong foundation for job protections that our colleagues will build upon for generations. I could not be more proud to have been part of organizing this strong, fighting union. Serving on our first bargaining committee has been the honor of a lifetime.”

Tech Guild members will vote on ratification of their contract on Thursday, Dec. 19th.

Among the contract highlights:

• Enhanced job security with ‘just cause’ protections
• Guaranteed wage increases for the first time of up to 8.25% (plus additional base rate
  discretionary compensation) that prioritize the largest wage increases for the lowest-paid members over the life of the contract
• Additional compensation for on-call work
• Important protections that lock in guardrails on additional variable compensation (including stocks and bonuses)
• Improved protections for workers on visas
• Language guaranteeing flexible hybrid work schedules
• Process and transparency protections related to career growth, performance reviews and other workplace issues

This tentative deal marks the end of more than two years of bargaining, which began shortly after the unit won its NLRB election by a landslide in March 2022. Software developers, project managers and graphic designers at The New York Times unionized alongside a wave of other tech workers at SEGA, Meow Wolf, NPR, Activision Blizzard and Alphabet, organizing as part of CODE-CWA, or the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees.

It also comes just over a month after the Tech Guild went on a ULP strike. NYT subscribers across the country expressed solidarity with striking tech workers by not crossing the digital picket line to play games such as Wordle and Connections, or using the Cooking app. Tech Guild members created their own games site, akin to a strike publication, that amassed more than a half million page views and more than 320,000 active users. Supporters also donated more than a quarter of a million dollars to Tech’s strike fund.

“With this contract our Tech Guild members demonstrate what happens when workers band together to fight for the value of their labor,” said Susan DeCarava, President of The NewsGuild of New York. “We not only won a first contract that set new standards for workers within the New York Times, but we’ve also established a strong foundation for what is possible for tech workers in the future when they organize and bargain collectively.”

###

ABOUT THE NEWSGUILD OF NEW YORK

The NewsGuild of New York, Local 31003 of the Communications Workers of America, is a labor union representing nearly 6,000 media professionals and other employees at New York area news organizations, including The New York Times, Condé Nast, The New Yorker, Thomson Reuters, The Atlantic, The Nation, PEOPLE, and The Daily Beast. The NewsGuild of New York advocates for journalists to have a voice in the newsroom, for press freedom, for inclusive and diverse workplaces, and for just cause, no exceptions, for all media professionals.