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Striking New York Times staff are asking you to quit your Wordle streak

Published

4 weeks ago

November 5, 2024

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Striking New York Times staff are asking you to quit your Wordle streak

Can you give up Wordle? (Alamy/PA)

A strike at The New York Times could affect its US election converge and staff want you to stop playing Wordle and Connections to help them.

Wordle has been a daily ritual for many, ever since it became a viral sensation in October 2021, spawning countless copycats before being bought by The New York Times for an undisclosed seven figure sum just four months later.

It has since remained an important mainstay of The New York Times website and seems to have paved the way for more puzzle games, such as Connections and Strands.

However, at the moment it’s being weaponised by tech staff at the website, who have gone on strike and are asking people to show solidarity by sacrificing their Wordle streaks and to stop playing for the time being.

The Times Tech Guild, which is comprised of 600 workers, alleges that The New York Times management has engaged in labour law violations, including ‘implementing return-to-office mandates without bargaining’ and intimidation of staff over their strike intentions.

After initially trying to reach an agreement through ‘multiple rounds of intense bargaining,’ the Guild has since walked out and will be holding daily pickets outside The New York Times’ headquarters in New York City.

In addition, it has asked regular readers to ‘honour the digital picket line’ and not engage with Wordle or any of The New York Times’ games. Even the site’s cooking app is a no-go.

It’s no coincidence that this strike action has coincided with the week of the presidential election in the US. Voting has already begun and without its tech staff, The New York Times’ coverage of the most important event of the year will be badly affected.

New York Times staff are begging you not to play Wordle — Strike action already began on November 4 (New York Times Tech Guild)

‘Management is more willing to risk our election coverage than they are to agree to a fair deal with its workers. They have left us no choice but to demonstrate the power of our labour on the picket line,’ says Tech Guild unit chair Kathy Zhang in a statement shared on X.

Newsroom union The New York Times Guild has also expressed support for the Tech Guild in its own statement, saying the ‘work and reputation of The Times are on the line’ and pledging not to take on any struck work. It added, ‘Tech workers deserve a strong union contract that reflects the immense value their work brings to The Times.’

The New York Times itself has issued its own statement to Polygon, where it said the strike was ‘both unnecessary and at odds with our mission.’

It insisted it has ‘robust plans in place to ensure that we are able to fulfil our mission and serve our readers’ during what it accurately describes as one of the most consequential periods of coverage for our readers.’