[HN Gopher] New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike
___________________________________________________________________
New York Times Tech Guild goes on strike
Author : ChrisArchitect
Score : 538 points
Date : 2024-11-04 12:08 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/04/business/media/new-
| york-t...
|
| https://archive.ph/f9gP0
| 7thpower wrote:
| You are doing god's work.
|
| Also, fyi for others. Many public libraries have NYT daily
| access codes you can use for free. It's a bit of a pain to have
| to renew each day you want to read NYT but is still great to
| have.
|
| Having a gift link is even more convenient.
| dang wrote:
| We detached this comment from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42040802. (Nothing wrong
| with your post, I just want to pin the parent to the top so
| people don't miss the links, and it's better not to consume
| extra real estate up there)
| 7thpower wrote:
| Appreciate the note!
| dang wrote:
| Now that we switched to WaPo I've put it back :)
| adolph wrote:
| Thanks for mentioning that! One of my libraries does a 3 day
| code. It looks reasonably insecure and scriptable to fetch
| since it is hard coded as a hidden element in the page that
| opens the NYT page upon successful login.
| criddell wrote:
| The current top comment includes this:
|
| > I encourage everyone to respect the picket line and get your
| news elsewhere until the workers get a deal.
|
| It would be nice if this could be replaced with a non-NYT link.
| smallerize wrote:
| That is not what the union asked for.
|
| _The guild said it was asking readers to honor its digital
| picket line by not playing Times Games products, such as
| Wordle, and not using the Cooking app._
| bwestergard wrote:
| I am also a member of the union at NPR, on the subway headed to
| the picket line in solidarity right now. Happy to answer any
| questions.
|
| I encourage everyone to respect the picket line and get your news
| elsewhere until the workers get a deal.
|
| The Times Workers are holding the line against arbitrary return
| to office mandates and for Just Cause protections. The vast
| majority of HN consists of developers, designers, QA, and PMs who
| stand to gain from a successful movement to win these rights.
| corndoge wrote:
| They're striking against return to office? I work from home and
| value it but it never would occur to me to strike for that. I
| view it as a privilege and not a right. Almost everyone in the
| world has to go on location for their jobs. I am curious why it
| is so important to NYT workers in particular that they would
| strike over it - is there something particularly bad about the
| location?
| nine_k wrote:
| A privilege is given, a right is taken.
|
| If enough people fight for the recognition of their need and
| desire to work from home, enough to enshrine it in some legal
| norms or at least in widely accepted and expected practices
| in the industry, WFH may become a right. This is how 40-hour
| work weeks became a right, or collective bargaining became a
| right, etc.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> This is how 40-hour work weeks became a right_
|
| It became a standard in the US, but is not a right. And
| while the idea of the 40-hour work week did, indeed, come
| from labour groups, it was the Great Depression needing
| effort to try and compel businesses to hire more workers,
| not the fight of workers, that pushed to see it become a
| standard.
| nine_k wrote:
| That might be the final chord, but the tune started back
| in the 18th century, as a long struggle:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day_movement
|
| It wasn't a sudden bout of benevolnce from the FDR
| administration, or from anyone in the management or
| government.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> It wasn 't a sudden bout of benevolnce from the FDR
| administration_
|
| Was there something to suggest it was? Getting workers
| back working isn't for the benefit of workers.
| nine_k wrote:
| How about letting them earn wages which they otherwise
| would not?
| randomdata wrote:
| A wage is debt, so not beneficial in and of itself. It
| can be beneficial when you call the debt and turn it into
| something tangible (e.g. food), of course, but that is
| also of benefit to the business who derives joy in giving
| you that food. It is not for the benefit of workers. It
| is for the benefit of everyone.
| rty32 wrote:
| It is one of the many things they strike against, and I
| imagine it's not the most important issue and they are
| willing to compromise on.
|
| Also a reminder that just a few years ago, CEOs thought
| remote work was good, everyone was productive, and they
| didn't see how they wanted to force everybody back. No, it's
| not a privilege, it's just how you get work done.
| adventured wrote:
| > Almost everyone in the world has to go on location for
| their jobs
|
| I think it's fair to point out that progressive worker rights
| acquisition would initially always be a small case minority
| context (vs the vast majority that would lack those rights).
|
| In the distant past almost everyone in the world lacked xyz
| worker rights.
| criddell wrote:
| > I view it as a privilege and not a right.
|
| I'd call it a perk or benefit. It's like health insurance or
| vacation time. You may not have a right to it, but it's
| upsetting when you lose it.
|
| When an employer takes away something you have a right to,
| you don't strike, you sue.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Have you got a family? How long is your commute? What did you
| (and your family) gain from the move to WFH? Speaking for
| myself I gained over two hours of free time a day and a lot
| less stress from traffic. I wouldn't mind so much if my
| office was in walking or cycling distance, but living where
| you work is rare in this field.
| lolinder wrote:
| I would totally join a strike against RTO if I were in a
| union or if someone organized one in response. The only other
| option for me would be to quit and look for another remote
| job.
|
| I'm not going back to having to bring earmuffs and blast
| music all day just to have any hope of getting anything done,
| I'm not starting a commute, and I'm not sacrificing lunches
| with my kids for some executive's opinion about how I ought
| to collaborate most effectively.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > They're striking against return to office? I work from home
| and value it but it never would occur to me to strike for
| that. I view it as a privilege and not a right
|
| Meanwhile in the early 20th century:
|
| > They're striking over a weekend? I work five days a week
| and value it but it never would occur to me to strike for
| that. I view it as a privilege and not a right
|
| Like, this is generally how it goes; workers' rights are
| generally won, not granted by divine authority.
| bloomingkales wrote:
| Let's not forget they fought for the 8-hour work day too:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day_movement
|
| _In the United States, Philadelphia carpenters went on
| strike in 1791 for the ten-hour day. By the 1830s, this had
| become a general demand. In 1835, workers in Philadelphia
| organised the 1835 Philadelphia general strike, the first
| general strike in North America, led by Irish coal heavers.
| Their banners read, From 6 to 6, ten hours work and two
| hours for meals.[37] Labor movement publications called for
| an eight-hour day as early as 1836. Boston ship carpenters,
| although not unionized, achieved an eight-hour day in
| 1842._
| JD557 wrote:
| > I work from home and value it but it never would occur to
| me to strike for that.
|
| I believe that the value from WFH varies a lot from person to
| person.
|
| If you were working from the office before and the company
| changed to a WFH policy, you might see it as a nice to have.
| You already made some life choices to accommodate going to
| the office. Maybe you even go to the office anyway.
|
| But, if you were hired when the company already had WFH, you
| probably made some life choices based on that (buying a house
| far away from the city, having kids, not buying a car,...).
| In that case, mandatory RTO is a complete disaster
| (especially with the housing crisis) and you pretty much have
| no option other than resigning.
|
| I assume NYT was doing WFH since ~2020, so a lot of employees
| probably took decisions based on WFH, therefore the strikes.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| One of the things they're striking against is _arbitrary
| return to office mandates_. Why did you leave off two words
| that change the nature of what they 're fighting for?
|
| Other folks have already pointed out the "rights" unions have
| fought for that we take for granted today. On top of that,
| being in a union is about solidarity with your fellow
| workers. You can support your coworkers' who need or just
| want to work from home. This should be easy, since it would
| affect you in approximately zero ways. They'll have your back
| for fighting for Just Cause protections.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> One of the things they 're striking against is arbitrary
| return to office mandates._
|
| If it is arbitrary, why is the NYT seemingly standing firm
| on the issue? As the article tells, NYT have agreed to a
| seven month grace period to give workers a chance to get
| their houses in order. That is not indicative of an
| arbitrary move.
|
| Perhaps you mean they are striking against mandates that
| are motivated by undisclosed reasons?
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _If it is arbitrary, why is the NYT seemingly standing
| firm on the issue?_
|
| You'll have to ask NYT management if you're curious why
| they're doing something. I can venture a guess though. A
| lot of companies use RTO mandates as a way to avoid
| layoffs (and the negative press and severance
| requirements that come with them). This seems to go hand
| in hand with the demand for "just cause".
|
| _As the article tells, NYT have agreed to a seven month
| grace period to give workers a chance to get their houses
| in order. That is not indicative of an arbitrary move._
|
| This doesn't follow.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> You 'll have to ask NYT management if you're curious
| why they're doing something._
|
| I don't have to ask them anything if they are truly doing
| it arbitrarily. That's the answer.
|
| But the question is if you are confusing "arbitrary" with
| "not knowing". Which is I guess I am to take that the
| answer is yes, that you are confused, since you admit to
| not knowing - which means you can't know that it is
| arbitrary.
|
| How did you end up so confused?
|
| _> This doesn 't follow._
|
| If it is arbitrary, why not institute it today on a whim
| (strike notwithstanding)? Why wait? This indicates that
| there is planning involved, which suggests that it isn't
| arbitrary. It does not prove it without a doubt, but when
| playing the odds...
| umanwizard wrote:
| There are no severance requirements for layoffs in the
| US.
| bloomingkales wrote:
| Pretty sure the NYT has entire contributors and foreign
| correspondents working remotely, forever.
|
| Not in a position to help you guys in any way, but fight the
| good fight against the mythology of the grand collaborative
| campfire that apparently happens in-office.
| conartist6 wrote:
| I rely on them to know what is going on, and tomorrow is the
| biggest day of every four years for needing to know what the
| heck is going on.
|
| I find your suggestion that I should consider the trust I've
| built with their news division destroyed on this day of all
| days ridiculous and irresponsible, especially given the fact
| that the timing of the strike was chosen to hurt me extremely
| badly if I should feel morally obligated to follow your advice
| dbalatero wrote:
| Times leadership knew this was coming and dragged their feet
| on negotiating.
| conartist6 wrote:
| I don't doubt it.
|
| While I wholeheartedly support their legal right to
| organize, I am not required to celebrate at the cynicism of
| attempting to undermine faith in democracy to win a better
| job
| dbalatero wrote:
| > I am not required to celebrate at the cynicism of
| attempting to undermine faith in democracy to win a
| better job
|
| You're being melodramatic. There are piles of news
| sources to choose from, absent NYT. And that assumes it
| falls over due to the strike, although it seems likely
| they need workers on hand to do ops.
| conartist6 wrote:
| I am being a bit melodramatic, yes. My working assumption
| is that the services they offer are critical enough that
| management will somehow make sure they stand up, because
| it is their obligation to me as their customer to do so.
|
| But with there being such a strong probability that there
| will be coordinated far-right attempts to undermine faith
| in our system of elections tomorrow, I do really do think
| of tomorrow as a kind of holy day for democracy that is
| not acceptable to use as bargaining chip.
| umanwizard wrote:
| > I do really do think of tomorrow as a kind of holy day
| for democracy that is not acceptable to use as bargaining
| chip.
|
| Nothing about an election where only the votes of people
| in 7 states out of 50 matter can possibly be "holy" for
| democracy.
|
| I don't need the far-right to undermine faith in our
| system of elections; I'm not far-right and have never had
| any faith in it to begin with.
| bwestergard wrote:
| There are many other excellent news sources. I suggest
| NPR, The LA Times, or the Washington Post.
| conartist6 wrote:
| Did Wapo roll back their cost-saving plan to coerce their
| reporters into using AI to write the news?
| soco wrote:
| I'm not sure how organizing a strike is undermining the
| faith in democracy, looks to me rather the other way
| around.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> attempting to undermine faith in democracy_
|
| Election day, assuming that is what you are referring to,
| is the least important day in democracy. It is every day
| after the person is hired, when you stay on top of them
| and communicate your expectations to them, when democracy
| happens.
| keybored wrote:
| > While I wholeheartedly support their legal right to
| organize, I am not required to celebrate at the cynicism
| of attempting to undermine faith in democracy to win a
| better job
|
| I'm not gonna support your cynical anti-union, anti-
| worker policy of blaming everything on the part of the
| workers while dismissing the management side with a "I
| don't doubt it".
|
| Two can play this game.
| malfist wrote:
| Protests that are done quietly and without costs and not
| effective protest.
|
| Also, there are more than one reputable news source. This
| protest isn't going to hurt you
| nine_k wrote:
| I can't imagine that the strike was _not_ timed. I suppose
| the idea is that the management may say "come on, let's
| quickly solve it and get back to the really important
| issues", if this indeed can be solved quickly. E.g. by saying
| that WFH is officially allowed for another year, or something
| similar, that actually requires no change except some change
| of heart among the higher-ups.
|
| _Not_ having this solved well ahead of time speaks poorly of
| NYT overlords. My trust in NYT has deteriorated quite a bit
| over the years :(
| lolinder wrote:
| > was chosen to hurt me extremely badly if I should feel
| morally obligated to follow your advice
|
| A few sincere questions:
|
| 1. Are there no other news sources that you'd trust to convey
| the binary of 'who won the election?'
|
| 2. Assuming that there aren't, what negative effect would
| there be to you from not knowing the result of the election
| for a few days?
|
| I'm sorta hoping that "hurt me extremely badly" is an
| exaggeration for effect. If not I'd suggest getting some
| perspective.
| conartist6 wrote:
| That's assuming the result is a binary this year. I'm
| expecting torrents of news about this contest, which is
| likely to turn into a brawl.
| lolinder wrote:
| And what harm to you would it be to not be aware of
| whatever nonsense is happening for a few days? Would you
| have been extremely damaged if you had not heard about
| January 6th until a week later?
|
| Unless you sincerely think there's going to be widespread
| political violence in your specific area, knowing about
| what's going on in at this exact moment is honestly as
| much about entertainment as anything else. And if you
| need local news, the NYT is typically not the best place.
|
| I'm as guilty of rubbernecking as anyone, but I wouldn't
| go so far as to claim that boycotting my favorite news
| source for a few days would be extremely damaging to me.
| conartist6 wrote:
| One way I get to have faith in our country and pride in
| being an American for the next four years.
|
| You're talking about Jan 6 like it was just some minor
| scuffle. And I agree that it did not ultimately amount to
| more than that, but do not forget that at the time there
| were two live bombs on the ground, we were in a
| constitutional crisis, the president seemed to be hoping
| that if he maintained silence his supporters would carry
| out a forceful takeover of the government which he
| assured them would be righteous in his view.
|
| The fact that there was not more escalation had a lot to
| do with how many people were watching closely, as well as
| with the actions of a few individuals like Mike Pence and
| Brad Reffensperger who, at the most important moments,
| decided that their duty was to all Americans and not just
| to one man.
| lolinder wrote:
| > The fact that there was not more escalation had a lot
| to do with how many people were watching closely
|
| It had absolutely nothing to do with the rubberneckers
| (myself included) who were following it from moment to
| moment on the other side of the country.
|
| Some small percentage of the watchers are in a place to
| actually do something about it, and if that's you then
| fine. Most of us don't need to know on the day of, we've
| just grown accustomed to knowing, and it's probably
| honestly a net negative for the world that we do follow
| things that are outside of our control so closely.
| Larrikin wrote:
| Trump was literally watching television news, taking the
| temperature of people's reactions on Twitter, and
| deciding in real time what he should do based on that
| information. The insurrectionists were closely watching
| the news and Twitter as well. Probably more people would
| have died or the coup would have been successful if there
| was lag in the coverage of a few days.
| lolinder wrote:
| If you believe this you fundamentally misunderstand the
| kinds of people who were participating in the
| insurrection.
|
| The opinions of the people who are comfortable sitting by
| while the conspiracy "steals the election" (or more
| likely, the astrotufed reactions put forward by
| sockpuppets of the conspirators themselves) don't matter
| by the time you get to the point of invading the US
| capitol.
|
| Trump was being cynical, but the insurrectionists
| themselves were just nuts. They couldn't have cared less
| what Twitter thought.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > The fact that there was not more escalation had a lot
| to do with how many people were watching closely, as well
| as with the actions of a few individuals like Mike Pence
| and Brad Reffensperger who, at the most important
| moments, decided that their duty was to all Americans and
| not just to one man.
|
| ... and in no small part due to the actions of police
| officer Eugene Goodman [1], who diverted away the
| incoming rioters with about 60 seconds or so to spare -
| had he not done that, the mob would likely have been able
| to take hostages.
|
| It was _sheer fucking luck_ and a couple of very VERY
| brave individuals that kept the death count of Jan 6th in
| the single digits (at least if one excludes the police
| officers committing suicide in the months after).
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Goodman
| enriquec wrote:
| It is very obvious that you only rely on the New York
| Times and would benefit from an outside perspective. I
| think most people have seen through what a disingenuous
| representation "insurrection" was and how melodramatic
| descriptions like yours are.
| conartist6 wrote:
| I like coming to the Hacker News comments to get a sense
| of what other perspectives people have.
|
| "Insurrection" is, in the most tone-deaf language-nerd
| sense, the word for what happened on that day. You could
| say that the US had a famous insurrection against the
| British, but we call it a revolution and we call the
| people who fought in the resulting war patriots and
| heroes. I've no doubt that the people who went and fought
| at the capitol believed that they were fighting as
| soldiers and patriots, so I'm less inclined to judge
| their moral character than I am to judge that of the
| person who told them that their lives and futures were
| over unless they took action.
| datavirtue wrote:
| People were beaten, trampled and shot in the face.
| Subsequently, most are convicted and/or in prison. It was
| not a "scuffle."
| more_corn wrote:
| Well Trump claimed to have a secret strategy to deploy if
| he loses. The rhetoric of violence and retribution is
| increasing from that camp. I don't think widespread
| physical violence and an assault on the institutions of
| democracy are out of the question. It's not unreasonable
| for the poster to want access to their trusted source of
| news in this trying time.
| datavirtue wrote:
| The judges will rule swiftly and for the betterment of
| democracy. I expect zero support of any consequence for
| election denying maggots.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| If there is ANY political violence from this election,
| you should be checking LOCAL news, not the NYT, unless
| you plan to drive out to the Capital to participate in
| that violence.
|
| What the shit does it help the Capital police if there is
| some sort of coup attempt and you watch it on TV? Does
| that really save America somehow? People are so desperate
| to be bystanders to things they could have prevented by
| making better choices months earlier.
| rsynnott wrote:
| The thing is, if people only go on strikes at times when it
| would be convenient to customers of the employer, then
| strikes wouldn't be particularly effective.
|
| (There actually are strikes which are consciously run on this
| basis, but mostly only in the most safety-critical fields.)
|
| Like, it's not as if the NYTimes was unaware that it'd be a
| big news week; you should probably be blaming management more
| than anyone else here.
| blitzar wrote:
| > tomorrow is the biggest day of every four years for needing
| to know what the heck is going on
|
| Watching a car crash, totally outside of your control in real
| time is not healthy. Skip the will they / won't they and find
| something healthier to do with the 24 hours or so of
| uncertainty.
| haccount wrote:
| I would recommend to just get your news elsewhere, forever.
|
| Like just ask chatgpt or your dog to make something up that
| sounds contemporary and newsy. Same quality level.
| johndhi wrote:
| Good luck. I'm curious what you feel about the following:
|
| These days news publications generally have a pretty weak
| business model and a lot of competition. Does it still make
| sense to have a union in this case? Why?
| aimazon wrote:
| The NYT is very profitable.
| solatic wrote:
| Unions are about more than compensation, they can also fight
| for working conditions, like the ability to work from home
| and the processes involved in termination, which are both at
| issue in this strike.
|
| Contrary to perhaps popular misconception, if the business is
| unprofitable, unions aren't going to demand a larger piece of
| a disappearing pie. If there isn't money to be paid out,
| there's nothing to fight over. Leading a union or negotiating
| for a union does not fundamentally turn you into an
| unreasonable person at the negotiating table.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| Uh the UWA would beg to differ. American production has
| only been shrinking as they have demanded more.
| dopylitty wrote:
| Something I've learned from 404 media is journalism actually
| has a fine business model. People are willing to pay for good
| journalism.
|
| The problem is (much like the rest of the economy) what
| passes for news media is incredibly top heavy and bloated
| with managers, executives, and shareholders who suck up money
| without providing any value.
|
| For every journalist there are 15 managers and editors hired
| for nepotism reasons. The NYT is full of people like that who
| do nothing but trot out right wing editorials supporting
| whatever war the US is involved in[4] or attacking people who
| think the world can be a better place[3]. I used to pay for
| The Atlantic but for every Ed Yong writing amazing science
| articles there's a right wing editor like Jeffrey Goldberg[1]
| sucking up money and shitting out right wing propaganda[2].
|
| This article[0]from 404 said it well.
|
| >Then I went to work for VICE, and made working at VICE part
| of my identity. I wanted the company to succeed so badly
| because I believed in what we were doing and I believed in
| the institution. I worked zillions of hours of unpaid
| overtime, took on side projects, canceled vacations to do
| work, worked on vacations, and made incredibly hard
| decisions, thinking that, if I did my job well enough, the
| company would succeed and we would get to keep doing what we
| were doing. I spent the vast majority of that time doing work
| that made money for an over-bloated apparatus that existed to
| make a bunch of middle managers and executives large salaries
| and bonuses and to benefit a founder who is now retroactively
| denigrating our work in an attempt to cling to whatever
| relevancy he can find by catering to conspiracy theorists and
| the right.
|
| I hope journalists leave the old right wing media like the
| NYT and Washington Post and start their own things focusing
| on journalism. I gladly pay for that.
|
| 0 https://www.404media.co/the-billionaire-is-the-threat-not-
| th... 1: https://fair.org/home/conspiracies-pushed-by-
| atlantics-edito... 2:
| https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-198-how-the-
| atlan... 3: https://fair.org/home/nyts-campus-free-speech-
| coverage-focus... 4: https://fair.org/home/20-years-later-
| nyt-still-cant-face-its...
| dylan604 wrote:
| > For every journalist there are 15 managers and editors
|
| Really? I don't believe this at all. I have not seen a
| properly edited published piece online in over a decade,
| and it continues to get worse. From obvious spelling errors
| and sentence fragments to full blown loss of coherent
| thoughts. The obviousness of multiple contributors' work
| being mashed together with the same information being
| repeated multiple times within the piece clearly shows that
| no editor is looking over the work at all. No editor worth
| their salt would allow that kind of work.
| johndhi wrote:
| Lots of interesting things in here - thanks for sharing -
| but why on earth do you call NYT and WashPo "right wing"?
| Timshel wrote:
| ? Would say union are even more important in hard times.
| keybored wrote:
| Does it still make sense to have a union while there are
| jobs? Yes.
| vijucat wrote:
| Genuine question: what prevents the NYT from offshoring these
| jobs if they can be done from home? I feel for you, as a fellow
| worker, but unless there is something hyper-local about the job
| such as regulatory requirements or trust issues with IP
| protection, the jobs will go to the ones who work hard without
| complaining too much.
| marricks wrote:
| > "Work hard without complaining"
|
| I don't think this is the outlook of an ally.
|
| I think the answer to that is a strong union able to bring
| down the website and get management to the table.
|
| This is why we all need unions.
| richwater wrote:
| > I think the answer to that is a strong union able to
| bring down the website
|
| Unions cannot cause intentional or malicious destruction of
| their workplace.
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/01/politics/labor-strike-
| supreme...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That was clearly intended to permanently damage/destroy
| the equipment.
|
| Coding a time bomb into the website would be illegal, but
| they can't force you back to work to fix a bug/outage
| that happens to occur during the strike.
| ericd wrote:
| If your highly cacheable, almost entirely static news
| site goes out when no one is touching anything, that's
| pretty suspect.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I suspect you underestimate the complexity of the NYT
| site and keeping it running.
|
| Especially with a huge election tomorrow.
| ericd wrote:
| Just saying, if it's built acceptably well, it shouldn't
| require engineers putting out fires constantly to not go
| down. But I'm sure you're right that I'm underestimating
| the complexity of the system as it's been constructed.
|
| And I guess it's not the case that no one is touching
| anything, it's being updated constantly.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| In particular, tomorrow night is going to have a _lot_ of
| things needing rapid tweaking; some random county in
| Missouri is gonna somehow have an emoji in their election
| count CSV because someone hit the wrong key, some new
| microservice will choke under the once-every-four-years
| load, etc.
| marricks wrote:
| I see how you could think that based on my phrasing, but
| presumably they have jobs because they do important work.
|
| I didn't meant to imply they would or should sabotage
| anything.
| burkaman wrote:
| It is very beneficial for the newspaper to have them working
| eastern timezone hours (frequent meetings with NYC-based
| staff and deadlines driven by daily publishing schedule), and
| be familiar with the subject matter they are working on. They
| aren't reporters but they are still part of the reporting
| team and it will significantly slow things down for everyone
| if they don't know or care about the news.
| lolinder wrote:
| Not OP, but I work in a company that is fully remote with a
| mix of offshore and onshore.
|
| It's possible we'd hire junior engineers locally for the
| offshore roles if we went fully local, but there's zero
| chance that we could offshore any of our existing onshore
| roles. This is for a few reasons:
|
| 1. Data law compliance. We can't let people outside the US
| see PII, which precludes them from participating fully in
| many support roles, including rotations within engineering.
|
| 2. Time zone differences are huge. We have some developers in
| Eastern Europe who we love, but coordinating their work with
| the roles that we can't offshore is substantially trickier
| than local employees. At a certain point it's more rational
| to pay higher salaries for US-timezone employees.
|
| 3. Cultural differences get in the way. It's far easier for a
| product person or a designer to get an idea across to someone
| with shared cultural context, so there are fewer back and
| forth iterations when there are US employees on a project
| than when there aren't. For the same reason we can't offshore
| design roles since we're serving a US market, so that doesn't
| work as a solution.
|
| 4. There's substantial difficulty in filtering for quality.
| We have some offshore contractors who've been with us for
| years, but we've struggled whenever we tried to add new ones.
| Hiring is always hard but it's particularly hard when you're
| either doing it indirectly through a contracting company or
| doing it yourself across cultural barriers.
|
| Lastly but perhaps most importantly, when we're doing
| offshoring through contracting companies who take a share of
| the fee, the difference in cost versus a US employee is much
| less significant. And if we're not using a contracting
| company then we're on the hook for figuring out the tax
| situation ourselves and as I mentioned filtering for quality
| is much harder. So it doesn't save as much money as people
| would assume to offshore a role.
| vijucat wrote:
| Great list! All make sense to me.
| fastball wrote:
| For (2), this is why you are seeing more and more off-
| shoring from the US to South America.
| lolinder wrote:
| Yeah, but that doesn't solve any of the other problems.
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| So many people underestimate the cost of coordinating
| across global time zones.
| gorjusborg wrote:
| As well as take shared cultural context / communication
| for granted.
|
| That isn't to say that teams should be monocultural, but
| expecting to have high performing teams without any
| thought to culture, time zone, or communication ability
| is optimistic.
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| IMO those issues are fixable with good hiring and firing.
| But all the fixes for large timezone differences that
| I've seen have significant costs and tradeoffs. Usually
| you pay with velocity.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| Offshoring is nothing new. Has been tried for decades, with
| multiple degrees of failure.
| randomdata wrote:
| It seems they failed either because:
|
| 1. The businesses didn't know how to handle the workers not
| being in the office. While a problem in the past, this is
| now a solved problem thanks to COVID forcing them to figure
| it out.
|
| 2. The businesses tried to hire _cheap_ workers. This is
| still going to fail, just as hiring minimum wage workers in
| the US for the job would fail. The workers you actually
| want charge the same no matter where their seat happens to
| be located. But I 'm not sure that is applicable here as
| the parent is not talking about cost-cutting, but filling
| the roles that are no longer filled due to the strike.
| more_corn wrote:
| Cultural problems, communication problems, leadership
| problems.
|
| I've been involved in a lot of software offshoring
| projects. It's about twice as likely to end in failure
| compared to onshore software development services.
|
| It has nothing to do with the price. I've worked with
| great devs who were cheap and terrible devs who were
| expensive. And it's hard to tell which is which till the
| project ships or fails to ship.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| I worked both as an offshore contractor, and as part of a
| team with offshore members. I can ensure that #1 is
| bullshit. You can have the whole offshore team in an
| office butts in seats all day and meet with failure.
| Happened many times in the past.
|
| #2 is a possibility. What happens when you do it is that
| your cheap hires tend to stay for a short time (as they
| will get better offers later, possibly involving
| relocation to better countries). You end up with the ones
| that are cheap for a reason.
|
| Most of reasons for failure is that incentives in between
| contractors and hiring company is misaligned, leadership
| have no idea what they are doing, cultural differences,
| time zone differences, etc.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> You can have the whole offshore team in an office
| butts in seats all day and meet with failure. _
|
| If all the butts are in the same office, you are no
| longer offshoring. You've moved the entire business.
|
| I don't think that is what anyone here is talking about,
| though. I certainly wasn't. Offshoring normally implies
| remote work.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| You've misinterpreted their comment. US companies that
| offshore usually have offices in other countries and
| these offshore offices typically have stricter RTO
| policies than the onshore offices. They weren't saying
| that all of the workers for a given company were in an
| offshore office, but that the offshore employees were
| required to be in-office.
| randomdata wrote:
| Again, offshoring normally implies that there are workers
| still in an "onshore" office. This has traditionally
| failed because the workers in the "onshore" office didn't
| know how to bridge the gap with the workers in the
| "offshore" office.
|
| But that's not the case anymore. The "onshore" workers
| are (or at least did for several years, giving the needed
| experience) also working remotely, so there is no longer
| an office barrier between the "onshore" business and the
| workers abroad.
|
| Whether or not the workers "offshore" work together in an
| office or independently at coffee shops really makes no
| difference and has nothing to do with the conversation.
| If you mean the parent misinterpreted what we're talking
| about - that is likely true. But we're not going to
| change the subject just because he is confused.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| > If you mean the parent misinterpreted what we're
| talking about - that is likely true.
|
| No, like I spelled out, your response that I replied to
| misinterpreted the comment that you replied to. What they
| were pointing out was that the failure rate of offshore
| work was never due to offshore teams being unable to
| coordinate due to not being in-office, but because other
| other problems, such as culture. Also, the user that you
| replied to was the one who made the upper-level comment
| that you originally responded to, not the other way
| around.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> What they were pointing out was that the failure rate
| of offshore work was never due to offshore teams being
| unable to coordinate due to not being in-office_
|
| Yes, that is what they pointed out, but it made no sense.
| The only way that could have applicability to the
| conversation is if you moved the entire business into
| that new "offshore" office, but then you wouldn't be
| "offshoring" anymore. You will have moved the business
| instead. Which isn't what anyone is talking about. The
| original comment is clearly about offshoring, not
| relocating businesses.
|
| I expect you are right that the other commenter
| misinterpreted something and replied based on that
| misinterpretation. But, no need to change the subject
| because of their confusion. Especially when, as you point
| out, _they established the subject!_ If it was good
| enough then, it remains good enough now.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| "Most of reasons for failure is that incentives in
| between contractors and hiring company is misaligned,
| leadership have no idea what they are doing, cultural
| differences, time zone differences"
|
| No-one was referring to moving business and I'm still not
| sure where you are coming from with that. Moving a
| contained software business unit of a US based business
| to another country is not "moving the business", but is
| often how offshoring works. This doesn't involve moving
| the entire business, but just a mostly self-contained
| portion of it. I don't think surgical_fire misinterpreted
| anything. The quote above from surgical_fire explains
| their sentiment. Businesses in the US getting used to
| their onshore employees being remote doesn't solve any of
| these offshoring issues.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> No-one was referring to moving business_
|
| Exactly. So where do you think the statement in question
| fits?
|
| _> and I 'm still not sure where you are coming from
| with that._
|
| Well, you're certainly not going to figure it out if you
| keep going off on some strange tangent about an entirely
| separate part of the comment that has nothing to do with
| the discussion here and which nobody replied to. And, I
| might add, offered nothing of value as that part said the
| same thing as the comment posted approximately _two
| hours_ prior.
|
| But what is your motivation for being in that state? We
| can see you are purposefully trying to not figure it out.
| Not only are you not staying on topic, you haven't even
| asked a single question to try and help your
| understanding. What is to be gained in acting like an
| idiot? Just a show put on for the sake of the lolz?
| CydeWeys wrote:
| > Again, offshoring normally implies that there are
| workers still in an "onshore" office.
|
| Not workers doing the same jobs though. Look at how
| manufacturing was offshored over the past several decades
| -- for many companies, entire job trees within the US
| were eliminated. HQ is still in the US, but anything
| remotely having to do with manufacturing isn't. You have
| to go really high up the chain in those offshored
| manufacturing jobs before you see anyone actually
| interacting with an employee in the US.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| I think if they did that and the union made a big enough
| stink, customers would potentially riot.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| Time zone requirements will destroy your retention.
| consteval wrote:
| It's fairly difficult to do American news, centered around
| American politics and American culture, from not-America.
| This, at least, applies to editors and journalists. But for
| tech, I'd imagine they need quite a bit of context too.
| AdamN wrote:
| Also the tech team at NYT is co-innovating with the
| business and journalism sides. Their work is highly
| ambiguous and changing year to year as they move their
| capabilities forward. That can't be outsourced or it
| undermines the strategy. NYT could build that capacity over
| time in another location that's cheaper but it would still
| need to be tightly integrated (i.e. employees).
| cloverich wrote:
| Thats actually a big separator between quality tech
| companies and lower tier ones ime. Lower tier ones treat
| devs as a cost center and code monkeys. Higher quality ones
| treat them as a value generator and expect them to know
| about and engage with the business. Its what lets them work
| with more autonomy and intuition to ship the stuff people
| need most, that generates the most value.
| Devasta wrote:
| There is nothing about the shitty office cube farm that
| imbues magic anti-offshoring properties to your job.
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| I have seen this before and it hit me. What is the point?
|
| Is the end goal to just have management in a nice office and
| all production including hr, finance and IT overseas??
|
| I mean those are office jobs, so they can WFH, so they can be
| in India or Philipines!! :)
|
| Wow saving so much money!!!
|
| Does a company work in a country or will they just take and
| take and take from the country and then not give jobs?
|
| Almost making me nationalist (I am in the EU)
| freeone3000 wrote:
| Yes! Outsourced HR has been a thing for a while, the same
| as IT or customer support. Offshoring the dev team makes
| sense, and offshoring of lower management has started,
| because it's just easier if they're in the same timezone as
| their team. Obviously senior management is too important to
| be replaced, for now.
|
| The goal of a company is indeed to make as much money while
| spending as little as possible. Why hire people when you
| don't have to?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| The purpose, point, goal, and desire of a company, which in
| real terms means the people who work in the C-Suite and
| make all the choices, is to make as much money as possible.
| They have no loyalties, it's more profitable that way.
|
| For example, multiple fast food companies have driven
| themselves into the ground by exploiting their franchise
| owners for fast cash. That's how Quiznos died. You would
| think murdering a company would actually be bad for C level
| people, but they just move on to the next company. They
| never seem to have a problem getting hired despite their
| past performance.
| keybored wrote:
| There are already places with Internet access that can work
| for cheaper than people that live in the NY area. For a long
| time now. Clearly there are more variables at play here. Or
| else the local NYT employees could be the most subservient
| and diligent workers ever: they would still get replaced by
| the cheaper offshore labor eventually.
|
| What prevents the NYT? In part: workers not just lying down
| and taking it. Just not "complaining" at all, like your
| implicit feel-for-you advice.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> There are already places with Internet access that can
| work for cheaper than people that live in the NY area._
|
| Hell, even _in_ the NY area. Median _household_ in the
| Bronx is only $37,397, meaning that half of the households
| are living there for less than that. And that 's household
| income, which is usually about 1.5-2x above individual
| income. That's a huge margin against what these workers are
| being paid.
|
| But people don't sell things based on cost. Hell, a lot of
| people lose money when they sell things. Around 10% of the
| US population have a _negative_ income in a given year!
| People instead charge as much as they can (or think they
| can, at least) get.
|
| And anyone who is worth hiring offshore can get just as
| much as a local (within some reasonable margin; there can
| be frictional costs to offshore hiring that won't change
| the cost to the employer, but will reduce what makes it to
| the worker). You can sometimes get lucky and hire someone
| who doesn't understand their worth, both locally and
| offshore, but you can't count on that (and they aren't apt
| to stick around for long once they realize their worth). On
| balance, it costs the same no matter where you go.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> on the subway headed to the picket line in solidarity right
| now. [...] are holding the line against arbitrary return to
| office mandates_
|
| Wouldn't you send a stronger message if you picketed at home?
| eduction wrote:
| Do you know if they are still seeking a four day work week
| and/or the non performance bonuses? The last update I saw was
| in September https://www.semafor.com/article/09/15/2024/new-
| york-times-te...
| fwip wrote:
| Has the union asked for people to "boycott" the NYT during
| their strike? I know that sometimes unions want that, and
| sometimes they want the opposite.
| losvedir wrote:
| > _I encourage everyone to respect the picket line and get your
| news elsewhere_
|
| Technically, wouldn't "respecting the picket line" be not doing
| any "scab" work for the NYTimes? Asking us not to _use_ the
| NYTimes is more of a boycott and a separate question (and not
| always something strikers ask for). Is it official policy of
| the strike that they request people boycott in solidarity as
| well?
| randomdata wrote:
| _> Asking us not to use the NYTimes is more of a boycott and
| a separate question_
|
| Hence the use of "and". It presents two separate ideas for
| you to think about:
|
| - Respect the pickup line
|
| - Get your news elsewhere
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| One aspect of respecting the picket line is not scabbing, the
| second is refusing to do business, i.e. not crossing the
| picket line.
| input_sh wrote:
| What they're asking from readers is far more limited in scope
| than not using the whole website:
|
| > The Tech Guild is asking readers to honor the digital
| picket line and not play popular NYT Games such as Wordle and
| Connections as well as not use the NYT Cooking app. Members
| of the newsroom union, Times Guild, have pledged not to do
| struck work, a right that's protected under their contract.
|
| https://nyguild.org/post/new-york-times-tech-guild-walks-
| off...
| yincrash wrote:
| According to Maggie Astor, news is not behind the picket line -
|
| NYT Games and Cooking are BEHIND THE PICKET LINE. Please don't
| play or engage with Games or Cooking content while the strike
| lasts!
|
| News coverage -- including election coverage -- is NOT behind
| the picket line. It's okay to read and share that, though the
| site and app may very well have problems.
|
| https://bsky.app/profile/maggieastor.bsky.social/post/3la4qg...
| bwestergard wrote:
| I stand corrected! My apologies.
| tacticalturtle wrote:
| > NYT Games and Cooking are BEHIND THE PICKET LINE. Please
| don't play or engage with Games or Cooking content while the
| strike lasts!
|
| If I pay for a service, I expect it to be available.
|
| It's not my job to track the status of labor disputes - it's
| the job of the NYTimes (the organization) to ensure they
| deliver that service.
|
| If they can't, because they are dealing with ongoing labor
| disputes, then I'll probably complain and cancel. The threat
| of those cancellations seems like plenty enough leverage for
| a striking union.
|
| I don't understand why I would need to preemptively refrain
| from a service I've already paid for.
| syndicatedjelly wrote:
| What leverage does the Times tech workers have in this
| negotiation? Why does their job specifically matter, versus
| someone abroad who can do some web dev and data wrangling for a
| fraction of the cost and similar quality?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| You have more-or-less hit upon the reason unions exist.
| syndicatedjelly wrote:
| Which is what?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Individual employees do not matter. Get a group of
| employees together to act in concert and you have a
| negotiating bloc that a company cannot ignore.
|
| Especially as the bloc grows. If the "someone abroad" is
| also part of the same bloc, management ends up running
| out of people to turn to. A rising tide floats all boats.
|
| (It's even more extreme in some countries. I've heard
| tale of situations in Scandinavian nations where a
| restaurant owner who mistreats their serving staff will
| find, in addition to the staff leaving and nobody being
| willing to scab for them, that their deliveries are
| delayed because nobody will drive ingredients to them and
| if their sink breaks down no plumber will take the
| contract to fix it).
| AzzyHN wrote:
| I appreciate you for joining in solidarity.
| gnopgnip wrote:
| It sounds like the biggest contention is just cause for
| terminations instead of at will. If the employer normally isn't
| firing people without a good reason it sounds like an easy win.
| Why do they fight these negotiations so much?
| JBiserkov wrote:
| Because. Employers are firing people without a good reason.
| It makes the stock price go up. And even the threat of it
| keeps the masses in check.
| foota wrote:
| I imagine they want to be able to let people go without
| building extensive cases against them. While being let go
| without a good reason isn't fun, neither is working with
| toxic people while the company tries to build a case against
| them.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| > If the employer normally isn't firing people without a good
| reason
|
| Isn't this the default state of affairs for american private
| enterprise? This is why PIPs are so wildly popular--it's
| trivial to fabricate performance reasoning regardless of the
| actual motivations for firing.
|
| Granted, I don't see how you could negotiate your way out of
| this. We need federal labor protections to make serious
| movement on this.
| legitster wrote:
| Do the tech unions at these organizations get along/have
| solidarity with the journalistic unions or is there animosity
| between the two on deals like this?
| visarga wrote:
| I have been avoiding NYT ever since they started suing LLM
| developers for copyright infringement. I find it distasteful to
| own abstract ideas or claim copyright over them.
| tqi wrote:
| > The vast majority of HN consists of developers, designers,
| QA, and PMs who stand to gain from a successful movement to win
| these rights.
|
| Personally, I have considered the arguments and concluded that
| I am not interested in collective bargaining or joining a
| union.
| perihelions wrote:
| https://archive.is/c35UA
| gsky wrote:
| I outright deny non remote positions. We got one life after all.
| standardUser wrote:
| It's a luxury to be able to do that, though the more of us who
| do it the more companies must oblige. In that sense, these
| kinds of strikes are doing us all a favor.
| Xelynega wrote:
| I agree, it's only a luxury because it's being taken away so
| we should support those fighting to keep it when it doesn't
| make any sense for them to RTO.
| cab11150904 wrote:
| It's actual the height of privilege. And likely unrecognized
| and unappreciated privilege. It really is sad that the divide
| is so large that the person that can turn down jobs thinks
| they're the oppressed.
| 9x39 wrote:
| We all indirectly benefit from the pressure tech workers put
| on the sector in negotiations for higher wages, perks like
| wfh, additional non-cash comp, etc. too.
| infecto wrote:
| Just cause feels like a stretch. Is that common in a lot of
| employment contracts? Feels like one of those rules that sounds
| like it could make sense but in reality it does not play out and
| you get this weird cohort of unproductive employees that you can
| never get rid of.
| kayo_20211030 wrote:
| I'll take a wild guess and assume that the big sticking point
| is the demand for just cause termination, with RTO being a
| somewhat distant second. I can't see management being in love
| with a just cause protection for employees as an alternative to
| what I assume is the current employee-at-will arrangement. But,
| from labor's perspective, it's probably the one thing they'd
| really like to gain, and for which they'd sacrifice or adjust
| all their other demands if necessary. To be safe in ones
| position, with its earnings and benefits, is a desirable
| position.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| The default for the US is "at-will employment", which means
| that your employer can fire you at any time, no reason needed.
| The definition of "just cause" would be collectively bargained,
| so both management and the union will understand and agree on
| what constitutes just cause or not.
|
| FWIW, layoffs are regulated differently from firings.
| gruez wrote:
| >The default for the US is "at-will employment", which means
| that your employer can fire you at any time, no reason
| needed.
|
| That seems... fine? In most transaction neither party needs
| to give "just cause" to terminate a contract. Imagine having
| to give documentation to move out of your current apartment,
| for instance. Getting fired is disruptive to someone's
| finances that some notice/severance would be justified, but
| "you have to give just cause" (which in practice, means
| multiple formal write-ups and several months of PIP, even in
| places without a union contract) seems excessive.
| miltonlost wrote:
| >>The default for the US is "at-will employment", which
| means that your employer can fire you at any time, no
| reason needed.
|
| >> That seems... fine? In most transaction neither party
| needs to give "just cause" to terminate a contract.
|
| You like having a sword over your neck at all times that an
| employer can just swing and take away your salary and your
| health insurance for any reason at all?
| gruez wrote:
| Did you stop reading there and not the subsequent
| sentence?
|
| >Getting fired is disruptive to someone's finances that
| some notice/severance would be justified
| miltonlost wrote:
| Did you stop reading there and not the subsequent
| independent clause?
|
| > but "you have to give just cause" (which in practice,
| means multiple formal write-ups and several months of
| PIP, even in places without a union contract) seems
| excessive.
|
| You still said requiring "just cause" is excessive. So
| you still want an "at-will" sword over your head.
| gruez wrote:
| >So you still want an "at-will" sword over your head.
|
| That sword is still going to be over your head regardless
| of at will employment. You could be laid off (no cause
| needed), the company goes bankrupt, or you become
| disabled. Where do you draw the line? If you don't want
| to accept "sword over your head" for firings, why would
| you accept it for layoffs?
| miltonlost wrote:
| But whatabout being laid off, whatabout company
| bankruptcy, and whatabout becoming disabled? MY god,
| we're talking about at-will employment being a threat to
| a human's life insurance and salary, and you bring up NON
| at-will issues? Those are fundamentally different swords
| than an at-will employment one.
|
| Is your manager going to disable your body? How is this
| even remotely close to a manager being able to fire you
| for whatever? You're just ignoring the whole "at-will".
|
| I'm not talking about a "sword" of any possible negative
| thing happening to you. Why not bring up asteroids? Or
| another plague? Or just suddenly a REAL sword beheads me?
| THe "sword" is solely the at-will. Learn how metaphors
| work.
| gruez wrote:
| It's the same sword: loss of income and healthcare.
| Semantic games aside, if the premise is that we shouldn't
| accept the risk of losing income/healthcare due to poor
| performance/internal politics, why would you accept
| losing income/healthcare due to layoffs (which also
| involve poor performance/internal politics)? It's fine to
| argue "people should be shielded from the risk of losing
| their income/healthcare", but you can't arbitrarily
| decide when it's fine to apply that principle.
| miltonlost wrote:
| THAT'S LITERALLY NOT THE PREMISE. AND IT'S NOT THE SAME
| SWORD. So much whataboutism and changing definitions to
| fit your needs. And also, you keep forgetting the more
| important thing: SOMEONE IS SWINGING THE SWORD AND WHY.
|
| > It's fine to argue "people should be shielded from the
| risk of losing their income/healthcare", but you can't
| arbitrarily decide when it's fine to apply that
| principle.
|
| You keep deleting key parts, like "people should be
| shielded from the risk of losing their income/healthcare
| from manager's whims". It's not arbitrary.
| gruez wrote:
| >You keep deleting key parts, like "people should be
| shielded from the risk of losing their income/healthcare
| from manager's whims". It's not arbitrary.
|
| And a layoff aren't caused by "manager's whims"?
| troupo wrote:
| 1. Layoffs are usually not "you manager fires you on the
| spot for whatever reason and with no
| severance/compensation"
|
| 2. Layoffs are usually a less common occurrence than
| firing people. While the US sucks at labor laws in
| general, there's at least the WARN act for mass layoffs
|
| 3. Layoffs are when _multiple_ people are let go at the
| same time, which is a _distinct category_ from firing a
| _single_ person
|
| 4. Hence there are often separate negotiations and
| separate clauses in the union contracts regarding firing
| a single person (one category) and laying off multiple
| people (a separate category)
|
| Why the hell you're arguing (in extremely bad faith)
| against labor protections is beyond anyone's
| understanding
| notTooFarGone wrote:
| Dying by lightning is like dying of cancer only a tad
| more unlikely.
|
| Your argument sucks at base level.
| troupo wrote:
| Layoffs are negotiated separately, and in normal
| countries (with collective bargaining and healthcare)
| layoffs, while impactful, won't cripple your life
| gruez wrote:
| >layoffs, while impactful, won't cripple your life
|
| You lose your income in both cases, and I said I'd
| support severance/notice period for firings. I don't see
| how the two are materially different.
| troupo wrote:
| Severance is one of the many things unions negotiate.
|
| Yet you keep insisting that somehow at-will employment
| with immediate termination is somehow good.
| gruez wrote:
| >Yet you keep insisting that somehow at-will employment
| with immediate termination is somehow good.
|
| I'm not sure how you got that impression. My original
| comment:
|
| >Getting fired is disruptive to someone's finances that
| some notice/severance would be justified,
| troupo wrote:
| Some of us are capable of maintaining the context of
| conversation.
|
| Edit: removed my reply in favor of this:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42046204
| dakiol wrote:
| It doesn't work like that. I worked for a tech company in
| Germany and it went brankrupt. By contract I have 3
| months notice period, and I got them. That's plenty of
| time to find another job (which I did). It goes both ways
| too (whenever I want to quit, I give my 3 months notice
| period).
|
| I would hate it to have an "at-will" contract. Just
| thinking that my manager or his manager or whoever can
| just fire me the very same day because of who knows what
| is just awful.
| renewiltord wrote:
| To be honest, yeah. I want to reduce the fixed costs of
| job transfer so that I can be efficiently allocated in
| the economy because that usually means I can make a lot
| of money. But I can see how someone who is at a lower
| skill level would want to raise the friction for hiring -
| less job mobility is good for them.
|
| If someone wants to fire me, I hope they find it easy.
| miltonlost wrote:
| > If someone wants to fire me, I hope they find it easy.
|
| Wut?
| gruez wrote:
| The point is that he wants to be employed at a company
| because the company values him, not because they're
| forced to keep him around. This shouldn't be an alien
| concept. In personal relationships, you want your
| friends/partner to stay around because they like you, not
| because they're forced to. In other business
| relationships, you want to get paid because you're
| delivering value, not because you'd be a pain to get rid
| of.
| troupo wrote:
| What stops them from quitting and finding employment
| elsewhere?
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| I would hate to work for an employer that didn't want me
| there. I'd rather they just fire me so I can get a job
| somewhere else.
| troupo wrote:
| You know you can quit yourself, right? That labor
| protections that protect you from bad employers do not
| preclude you from, you know, quitting your job and
| finding employment elsewhere?
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| Sure but those same protections might discourage other
| employers from hiring me in the first place.
|
| It's not such an issue for me now that I have a fair bit
| of experience, but if I was fresh out of university it
| would be harder to convince an employer to take a risk.
|
| Also severance is a thing.
| troupo wrote:
| Never knew people are unemployable in countries with
| strong labor protections. I must be lucky to have landed
| a job _counts on fingers_ multiple times now.
|
| > Also severance is a thing.
|
| Indeed it is. Not in the US though
|
| ---
|
| The absolute delusion Americans live in never ceases to
| amaze me. I'm surprised China came up with 996, not the
| US, and that the US didn't immediately adopt it with the
| masses cheering it on.
| krainboltgreene wrote:
| It's not fine. It sucks for just about everyone involved
| except the business owner.
| gruez wrote:
| This fails to consider second order effects. Adding more
| friction to firings also makes teams less performant (as
| they fail to get rid of underperforming employees), as
| makes finding a job more difficult (because companies are
| more reluctant to hire on the off chance they get a bad
| employee they can't get rid of). This isn't theoretical.
| Returns suck for retailers, but they still voluntarily
| offer it because it entices consumers to buy things they
| wouldn't otherwise buy.
| krainboltgreene wrote:
| There's no evidence that "adding more friction to firings
| also makes teams less performant". Your statement relies
| on two assumptions: (1) employers are reliable at
| determining "underperforming", (2) employers are making
| choices based of performance. There's no evidence that it
| makes "finding a job more difficult". There are entire
| swaths of this earth that have the framework that we're
| talking about and their job markets are just fine.
|
| I know that an online form makes it easy to just position
| yourself as correct, but you're arguing against reality.
| gruez wrote:
| >Your statement relies on two assumptions: (1) employers
| are reliable at determining "underperforming", (2)
| employers are making choices based of performance.
|
| 1. You could make similar arguments about consumers being
| qualified to determine product quality. Are retailers
| dumbasses for wasting money accepting returns?
|
| 2. When it comes to hiring/firing decisions, perception
| of competence is as important (if not more so), as actual
| competence (if you can even define that). No manager is
| going to be assuaged by "well actually, you're pretty bad
| at determining competence, so you should be glad that
| we're requiring you to file a bunch of paperwork before
| you can fire someone".
|
| >There's no evidence that it makes "finding a job more
| difficult". There are entire swaths of this earth that
| have the framework that we're talking about and their job
| markets are just fine.
|
| New hires rate in Europe (with famously stronger labor
| protections) is around 10% per year in 2022. US meanwhile
| is more than 4% _per month_.
|
| https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/tools/skills-
| intelligence/r...
|
| https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/JTS000000000000000HIR
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| I'm sure the paper feels it's excessive too. The union
| doesn't. They've already failed to work this out without a
| strike, so the question now is who can suffer the longest
| before the other breaks, or is willing to give some other
| concession in return for getting their way on this issue.
|
| In other words, one side will win, or both will compromise.
| It's just another contract negotiation, like any other
| between two parties. Unions are allowed to do it with
| businesses, just like businesses are allowed to do it among
| themselves. This is literally the ruling ideology of the
| West and has been for generations, but somehow when a union
| takes advantage of it, that's radical marxism.
| umanwizard wrote:
| > Just cause feels like a stretch. Is that common in a lot of
| employment contracts?
|
| Very rare in the US
| purple_ferret wrote:
| It's very common in union contracts.
|
| They way it usually works is there is a probationary period
| that you can fire someone under for any reason (usually 90
| days), but after that, supposedly you're more protected.
|
| That said, in practice, it doesn't really prevent you from
| being part of a layoff or anything. You'll just get more notice
| and complaints.
| itake wrote:
| Probation periods are a mess, b/c they incentivizes "hire and
| fire".
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| Though only for employers that don't care who they hire in
| the first place, if you fire someone simply because they
| might be harder to fire lately you don't really care about
| who you hired.
| itake wrote:
| I actually came to the opposite conclusion: you really
| care about who you hired, because you define who they
| work with. If you hire a low performer or someone that
| isn't a good culture fit, the productivity of your other
| team members will suffer.
| willsmith72 wrote:
| Union contracts, or just about any permanent contract in "the
| west" except America
| keybored wrote:
| It "feels like a stretch" and "sounds like it could make sense"
| and "but in reality it does not play out". You're just
| gesturing here. In turn the reply is either yes/no depending on
| if we agree with the general vibes you are putting out.
| infecto wrote:
| Can you be clearer with what you are trying to say? I am
| simply stating that I have rarely heard of "Just Cause"
| clauses and I wonder how it plays out in reality. I have my
| ideas about it but I don't have much of any data but I also
| generally think its hard to craft well thought out rules like
| this. Maybe you should take your vibes elsewhere if you don't
| like data and questions.
| quandrum wrote:
| Due process for employment is probably more important than fair
| pay in most union contracts.
|
| Your argument is in fact that exact same one that was used to
| argue against due process in legal proceedings. "In reality it
| doesn't play out and you get this group of criminals running
| free on legal technicalities."
|
| If you are in a union shop and have a large contingent of
| unproductive employees, it happens for the same reason as non-
| union shops. You have bad management. Just Cause is almost
| entirely asking management to do a little paperwork and a
| little planning, things that are supposed to be their job
| anyway.
| infecto wrote:
| What argument have I made other than a question? I would like
| to see data how it plays out. Now I have some ideas of how it
| plays out but it would be interesting if there was a way to
| have a test/control group in these types of contracts. I find
| the struggles here interesting and its fun to watch them play
| out.
| caesil wrote:
| Seems like it could drive NYT engineering to be much more
| conservative in hiring, resulting in engineers being pushed to
| do more work.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Which is why Europe has more time off, more benefits, happier
| employees, etc right?
| M4v3R wrote:
| It's not common in the US but over here in Europe it's standard
| practice that you cannot fire an employee at will, most of the
| time you need to give 1-3 months notice. You can only fire them
| immediately if there's misconduct, breach of contract etc.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| > Is that common in a lot of employment contracts?
|
| It's a legal requirement in many parts of the world.
| mellosouls wrote:
| As much as I am a bolshy union member and supporter, this doesn't
| seem too bad on the surface, the article doesn't make clear what
| the issues with it are?
|
| _Times management said in an email to workers on Sunday that it
| had offered a 2.5 percent annual wage increase, a minimum 5
| percent pay increase for promotions and a $1,000 ratification
| bonus. It also said that the company would maintain its current
| in-office work requirements of two days a week through June 2025,
| while allowing employees to work fully remotely for three weeks
| per year._
| randomdata wrote:
| _> the article doesn 't make clear what the issues with it
| are?_
|
| What is not clear? The article tells that the issues are
| contention around return to office policies (as your quote
| tells, change is planned for July) and wanting a "just cause"
| provision.
| mellosouls wrote:
| But it's a reasonable offer, there is no clarity in the
| article about exactly what is so bad they need to strike.
|
| Eg if they said we haven't had a pay rise for ten years, that
| would provide context.
|
| Nothing in the article gives a justification for a strike.
| That's not to say the justification doesn't exist but it's
| not remotely elucidated.
| miltonlost wrote:
| You find it reasonable. THe union, and I, do not find a RTO
| announcement in June (or anytime really) to be a reasonable
| request. So yes, the article justified the strike. You just
| don't think the justification is reasonable.
| DoneWithAllThat wrote:
| You don't think it's reasonable to tell your employees
| that as a condition of employment they have to be at a
| specific location at specific times?
| randomdata wrote:
| Of course it is reasonable. But it is equally reasonable
| for workers, as a condition of employment, to be able to
| work remotely. Everyone gets to choose what they want for
| themselves.
|
| If an agreement can't be made... Oh well.
| miltonlost wrote:
| If they are tech workers who only need a laptop and can
| work remotely 3 days a week normally, and therefore 5 as
| well? Yes, its unreasonable as their specific location at
| a specific time is unnecessary. If you don't need to be
| physically present to work, then it is unreasonable to
| force someone to relocate or to come into an office.
|
| Is it reasonable to tell your factory worker employees
| that they have to be at the factory at certain times?
| Yes, that's reasonable because these workers must be
| physically there.
|
| Using broad words like "employees" and "employment"
| simplifies your thinking.
| jajko wrote:
| But you have no idea about internals of NYT, do you? You
| have no idea whats reasonable and whats not in their
| team.
|
| BTW why people create a new accounts just to furiously
| comment all over pretty basic topics like this? Are you
| really that ashamed of your own opinions (which are still
| anonymous) or you feel your employer may trace you back?
| Or NYT employee?
| miltonlost wrote:
| And you do know what's reasonable? I'm gonna side with
| the union and not the company owned by a billionaire
| dakiol wrote:
| It's not about the internals of NYT. It's 2024, WFH
| should be already a non-negotiable perk for tech
| employees because:
|
| - the tech is there to offer this kind of work. It's not
| that NYT is somehow special about this
|
| - it's better for the employees. Would we be in favour of
| companies asking to work 80h/week as a normal thing?
| Would we be in favour of companies asking to work 6 days
| per week? Maybe 100 years ago, but in 2024 the answer is
| (or should be) no. Why? Because we as employees have
| gained some rights over the last decades to make things
| better for ourselves. WFH is one more right in that list
| and shouldn't be taken as a privilege
|
| I'm amazed by the people who are bashing against WFH.
| This is not about the free market, this is about moving
| the human race in the right direction.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> WFH is one more right in that list_
|
| Yet, strangely, your list doesn't contain any rights.
| Employers absolutely can ask you to work 80 hours per
| week / six days per week if they so choose. You have the
| right to a higher rate of pay after a certain number of
| hours (with some exceptions) if you accept, but that's
| something quite different.
|
| _> WFH is one more right in that list_
|
| While rights can have exceptions, when those excepted are
| greater in numbers than than those eligible... Good luck!
| The right to higher pay if you work on location seems
| more politically tenable, but isn't that already priced
| in anyway?
| immibis wrote:
| Do you work at the NYT and have some idea about its
| internals?
|
| And do you think it is possible that a lot of people just
| don't agree with you (maybe because you are wrong)?
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > You don't think it's reasonable to tell your employees
| that as a condition of employment they have to be at a
| specific location at specific times?
|
| You think it's reasonable to hire someone remotely, then
| later forcibly relocate them to another, more expensive
| city, with no compensation? Because that's what's
| happened here.
|
| In jurisdictions with stronger labor laws, that is not
| only not reasonable, but outright _illegal_ (constructive
| termination).
| janalsncm wrote:
| It's a negotiation. What is reasonable is for the two
| parties to determine. But it's not crazy to imagine. This
| is not Walter White asking to work remotely from a
| professional-grade chemistry lab. These are tech workers
| who can carry the professional-grade equipment in their
| backpacks.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> Eg if they said we haven 't had a pay rise for ten
| years, that would provide context._
|
| That wouldn't provide any kind of justification either,
| though. All it might indicate is that they desire more pay,
| just as we know here that they desire a different policy
| around remote work and desire a "just cause" provision.
|
| And it seems that is the motivation - simply that they
| _want_ it. Which is all the justification that is needed.
| One does not have to work if they don 't want to. It is up
| to the NYT to decide if it wants to compel them to or not.
| kortilla wrote:
| They don't think RTO is reasonable, which is a completely
| logical stance to take if you've setup your life working
| from home (esp if it's hours from the office).
| jajko wrote:
| ... which is something people did on their own, without
| agreeing with their employers on duration etc.
|
| I love working from home, but its just a non-guaranteed
| perk that can go away anytime and eventually it will, and
| companies shouldn't break their backs to accommodate
| people. There is free job market to match one's
| expectations, triple especially in places like New York.
|
| I really, really don't get folks who setup their lives in
| the middle of nowhere to save some bucks and then they
| complain that world and work doesn't come to their
| doorstep. You took the risk in maybe unclear situation,
| you bear the consequences if the risk doesn't pan out
| your way.
| everforward wrote:
| > and companies shouldn't break their backs to
| accommodate people.
|
| Why isn't the inverse equally true? That workers
| shouldn't have to break their back to accommodate a
| change in company policy?
|
| > You took the risk in maybe unclear situation, you bear
| the consequences if the risk doesn't pan out your way.
|
| Again, I think this is equally true going the other way.
| Companies allowed their workers to move away from the
| office, why don't they assume any risk that workers won't
| want to return?
|
| I get that there needs to be a balance of power, but I
| don't understand why any request from the company is
| valid by default and any request by workers is somehow an
| imposition that the workers need to justify. Why isn't
| the company asked to justify why workers need to RTO?
| randomdata wrote:
| _> Why isn 't the company asked to justify why workers
| need to RTO?_
|
| Well, we do know the state of New York offered the NYT
| (among others) tax incentives/subsidies earlier in the
| year. I can't imagine the state of New York will be happy
| if the workforce works from New Jersey (or Texas).
| Calling upon the workers to work in New York gives the
| state the economic activity it expects in return for the
| subsidies it offered.
|
| But does that make any difference to the workers? If they
| want to work remotely, whatever reason the NYT has is not
| their problem.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> you bear the consequences if the risk doesn 't pan out
| your way._
|
| Okay, but that's what they are doing. They can't work
| there anymore under the current situation, so they have
| accepted that their risk didn't bear fruit and are now no
| longer working for the NYT. Consequences bore.
|
| They have graciously extended an opportunity to the NYT
| for it to reconsider the current state before the workers
| walk away for good. Accepting risk doesn't mean you can't
| still be cordial. At this point they are still willing to
| go back if the conditions allow them to. But if the NYT
| in the end says _" no, we don't need you anymore, it is
| time for us to close up shop"_, so be it.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| > its just a non-guaranteed perk
|
| "Perk" is another way of saying "working conditions".
| They are bargaining over salary, benefits, and working
| conditions. Therefore, it's on the table.
|
| Whether or not the bargaining workers are responsible (or
| even sympathetic) with their private living arrangements
| is not part of the negotiations, and so it doesn't
| materially matter.
|
| The workers are not "owed" WFH, but neither is the paper
| "owed" RTO. They have to bargain over it. One side, or
| likely both sides, will have to give somewhere on the
| basket of issues they are bargaining over. Maybe the
| paper loses on this, but gets something else they want
| like lower salary. Or maybe workers are willing to RTO if
| they get some kind of commute allotment (pay for their
| gas/metrocard/whatever).
|
| The bargaining is holistic, over the whole contract
| terms. The process is not simply that they go item by
| item and try to convince each other to change their
| minds. The process is that they bargain the entire
| package until they are both OK with accepting it.
| janalsncm wrote:
| Exactly. At one time it was not "reasonable" to expect
| Saturdays off, either.
| dakiol wrote:
| > but its just a non-guaranteed perk that can go away
| anytime and eventually it will, and companies shouldn't
| break their backs to accommodate people
|
| I think this is the key to the question. We should start
| seeing WFH as a right rather than as a perk. Just like
| the dozens of other rights we have gained over the years.
| If it were for the companies, we would still be working 6
| days/week, 80h/day with little or no
| vacation/sick/parental days. I'm sure those rights were
| considered normal in the past but not anymore.
| xpe wrote:
| > As much as I am a bolshy union member and supporter, this
| doesn't seem too bad on the surface, the article doesn't make
| clear what the issues with it are?
|
| The linked article is the New York Times writing about a strike
| _against_ the New York Times. Factor this into your
| assessments.
| dialup_sounds wrote:
| If you're implying bias, consider that the news and editorial
| staff have been unionized since the 1940s.
| Xelynega wrote:
| Consider also that these workers have been unionized for
| over two years and the NYT is refusing to acknowledge them.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| A 2.5% annual wage increase doesn't even cover inflation over
| the past few years. That is a complete non-starter.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| Probably because the article you read is from the party that
| doesn't want to make a deal, try this summary:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42043604
| vineyardlabs wrote:
| idk 2.5% yearly raise and 5% for promotions seems kind of
| meager to me. Seems like a yearly raise should both cover cost
| of living and throw in another percent or 2 to compensate for
| having another year of experience. I know a lot of people in a
| lot of professions don't get this but tech comp is what it is.
|
| Then a promotion raise that constitute only 2 years of yearly
| base raises seems pretty lacking to me since a promotion
| generally comes with increased responsibilities and higher
| standards.
|
| I've worked as a developer for companies outside of big tech
| who complain all day long about the fact that they can't
| compete with big tech on compensation while they hemorrhage
| engineers to big tech. I'm sure NYT does the same. No amount of
| moaning about this will change the fact that they are directly
| competing with these companies for talent.
|
| I'm not anti-union at all and see them as necessary in certain
| types of jobs (I hope the Boeing Machinist's Union guts
| Boeing), but I have no interest in being a part of a union as a
| developer because it seems like collective bargaining just ends
| up locking everyone into the level of salary/career progression
| of the lowest common denominator.
| dbalatero wrote:
| Here is context on the strike, how long it's been brewing, and
| more that I happened to read yesterday:
|
| https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-new-york-times...
| crazygringo wrote:
| Thank you so much! That is a _vastly_ more informative article.
| It seems like it 's not so much the NYT is opposed to the
| contract's specifics -- they're opposed to having a contract
| _at all_ because the union is new. The NYT has been stringing
| the union along without ever actually signing anything, so now
| the union has to strike to get the NYT to take them seriously.
|
| Key parts:
|
| > _The Tech Guild won its unionization vote in March of 2022,
| but has yet to agree upon a final contract with management. In
| September of this year, the Guild voted to authorize a strike
| with an overwhelming 95 percent (or over 500 members) in favor.
| The vote marked two and a half years of bargaining with no
| result. As Harnett puts it, "At some point, you need a
| deadline."_
|
| > _The first key demand is a protection that Times editorial
| staff already have: just-cause job protections, which would
| ensure that members cannot be fired without good reason and due
| process. The editorial staff won this protection in their 2023
| News Guild contract, and just weeks ago, 750 Times journalists
| penned a letter to management urging them to reach a contract
| with the Tech Guild before Election day._
|
| > _The second demand stems from a pay study the union released
| in June of this year, which found numerous pay discrepancies
| for women and people of color. According to the study, Black
| tech workers at the newspaper make 26 percent less than white
| workers. The study also found that women, who make up over 40
| percent of the Tech Guild, earn 12 percent less on average than
| men, while Black and Hispanic or Latina women earn 33 percent
| less than white men._
|
| > _The third demand in dispute is a frequent source of anxiety
| for Hoehne in particular: return to office. Currently, many in
| the Tech Guild work remotely full-time.... Hoehne has been
| living and working remotely three hours away from the Times
| office, in upstate New York, since the pandemic began. "I would
| lose my job. I can't sell my house. My kid is in daycare. I
| can't. All we're asking is for them to put in writing that we
| won't do that to you."_
|
| > _But both Hoehne and Harnett don't think management's
| reluctance to settle these demands stems from the particulars
| of any of the demands themselves; none of them would spark
| radical changes. The negotiation process has lagged for years,
| which Times editorial staff experienced en route to their
| contract as well. Rather, Hoehne said, staring down the barrel
| of the Election Day strike, management's immovability feels
| like it's more about preventing the union from stabilizing at
| all._
|
| > _"They could easily end all of this with a single phone call
| or e-mail," Harnett said. "But they're making the decision not
| to. Maybe they don't believe that we are resolved [to strike].
| I don't know how else to convince them."_
| slt2021 wrote:
| >>According to the study, Black tech workers at the newspaper
| make 26 percent less than white workers
|
| >>women, who make up over 40 percent of the Tech Guild, earn
| 12 percent less on average than men
|
| claims like these always irk me, like did you just compare
| averages by race/gender? Whoever made this claim, did they
| control for other factors, like job title/level or
| productivity?
|
| its like the famous "gender pay gap" claimed by all the
| people who majored in Gender Studies instead of Statistics.
| Turns out "gender pay gap" magically disappears as soon as
| you start controlling for relevant variables like hours
| worked, job seniority, experience, etc
| (https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/there-really-is-no-gender-
| wag...) That is, there is almost no evidence
| that men and women working in the same position with the same
| background, education and qualifications are paid
| differently. Whether it's the Target Corporation, Facebook,
| the University of Virginia, the United Way, the White House
| or McDonald's, there is almost no evidence that any of those
| organizations have two pay scales: one for men (at a higher
| wage) and one for women (at a lower wage). Of course, that
| would be illegal, and if that practice existed, organizations
| would be exposed to legal action and "half the legal
| profession would be taking such cases on contingency fees"
|
| I am all for fairness in pay and equality, but lets not
| insult the intelligence of your readers by making some absurd
| claims without doing proper econometric study and controlling
| for confound variables
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Whoever made this claim, did they control for other
| factors, like job title/level or productivity?
|
| You get that "all the black people are in lower roles or
| somehow all deemed less productive" is worse, right?
| slt2021 wrote:
| Deemed "as less productive" by whom?
|
| We have a free labour market, if it was true that NYT
| underpaid Black workers for the same productivity, they
| could easily jump ship to other company and make more $$.
|
| What is stopping "black people" from escaping the
| supposed inequality at NYT and making more money
| elsewhere ????
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Deemed "as less productive" by whom?
|
| You've attempted to explain away pay gaps by saying it's
| because of lower roles and/or lower productivity, but
| that's just the same problem with an extra step. Why are
| they in lower roles? Why are they assessed as less
| productive? Are they inherently dumb/lazy/bad, or are we
| just back to "the pay gap exists because of biases"
| again?
|
| > What is stopping "black people" from escaping the
| supposed inequality at NYT and making more money
| elsewhere ????
|
| Black NYT employees are likely very well aware that the
| biases they encounter are not _unique_ to the NYT.
| Spivak wrote:
| Jesus christ thank you, folks on the internet are so
| quick to dismiss pay gaps just because we know what
| causes them as if that magically makes it not a problem.
|
| Take one factor, women earn less because of mid-career
| halts due to having children, _like the father didn 't
| also have a child_. Women bear the brunt because we're
| expected to be the primary caregivers, and this hurts men
| too due to the "father babysitting his kids" problem of
| considering the father's involvement as secondary.
|
| You can say this isn't a problem for her employer to
| solve but as long as we have no intention of upsetting
| the standard nuclear family gender roles men and women
| taking the default life path shouldn't consistently make
| one worse off than the other.
| Lonestar1440 wrote:
| What if Women, on average, prefer to take more time away
| from work due to having a child than their male partners?
| And what if "Black" people are, on average, younger than
| other groups and so are more likely to be in early-career
| roles?
|
| More broadly, once we start dividing "People" up into
| groups like "Black" "White" "Man" "Woman"; isn't a bit
| silly to think the groups won't expect and want and do
| different things? Like even if we assign people literally
| at random (and 'Race' isn't much different than this);
| wouldn't differences emerge?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Now, imagine you enslave one of those groups for ~400
| years, prevent them from voting or getting an equal
| education for another ~100+. Might differences emerge in
| how society treats that population?
| Lonestar1440 wrote:
| Yes. Do you agree that my point is also correct?
| Different groups want different things, and have
| different demographics, and excel in different areas.
|
| If we defined the "groups" in a less historically
| informed way, we'd still have differences.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Different groups want different things, and have
| different demographics, and excel in different areas.
|
| I think it's very easy to overstate how much those things
| are genuine differences in preference/ability. Allowing
| no-fault divorce dropped female suicide rates by 20%;
| were they _happy_ in those marriages, or _enduring_ them?
| Would they choose differently if offered the same
| opportunity?
| zmgsabst wrote:
| > You can say this isn't a problem for her employer to
| solve but as long as we have no intention of upsetting
| the standard nuclear family gender roles men and women
| taking the default life path shouldn't consistently make
| one worse off than the other.
|
| Yes it should -- if they're making choices at a different
| rate.
|
| That is, if men who take similar time off experience
| similar hardship and it simply happens to be that women
| prefer to stay home with the kids more often, there is
| literally no problem.
|
| We don't need to "fix" biology to fit our ideology:
| that's backwards.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| > claims like these always irk me, like did you just
| compare averages by race/gender?
|
| Probably not, the striking union is the one that contains
| all the data analysts at the NYTimes, so they have some
| experience with sociology data.
|
| > Whoever made this claim, did they control for other
| factors, like job title/level or productivity?
|
| As explained in the article, the data analysts union mad
| this claim, it's even explicitly linked!
|
| > Turns out "gender pay gap" magically disappears as soon
| as you start controlling for relevant variables like hours
| worked, job seniority, experience, etc
|
| No, that's just something you read on a blog written by a
| guy who would go on to write that women shouldn't get wage
| equality because they would have to work more dangerous
| jobs and thus die more, because apparently saving the lives
| of man by making those jobs safer is impossible.
|
| Anyway, here's a big stats heavy quote about how there is
| solid evidence for a pay gap, from the stats nerds at the
| census bureau (I link only the executive summary https://ww
| w.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WB/media/An%20Evaluat..., link
| to the full thing can be found in the summary)
|
| """In both decomposition models, the portion of the gender
| wage gap that could not be explained by differences in
| men's and women's work histories, work hours, industry and
| occupation distribution, and job characteristics was
| between 68 and 70 percent, yielding an unexplained wage gap
| of 14 to 15 percent. That is, of an estimated wage gap of
| 21 percent, statistical models explain between 6 and 7
| percentage points of the gap, leaving 14 to 15 percentage
| points unexplained, similar to other major studies on this
| topic.
|
| Differences in the sorting of men and women between
| occupations do not fully explain the gender wage gap; men
| and women are paid differently within occupations as well.
| The size of the gender wage gap varies significantly by
| occupation even as men earn more than women in nearly all
| occupations. While wages are at parity in some occupations,
| gaps are as large as 45 percent in others. Across the 316
| occupations in this study, occupations in finance and sales
| had the largest gender wage gaps""
| zmgsabst wrote:
| > finance and sales
|
| Weird that jobs with performance bonuses are the largest
| gap -- but that perhaps suggests that the cause _isnt_
| sexism in the workplace, but yet more confounders they
| didn't account for.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| If you feel so strongly about it, become a Union rep and
| advocate for whatever you see fit.
| janalsncm wrote:
| > The third demand in dispute is a frequent source of anxiety
| for Hoehne in particular: return to office.
|
| Other tech workers should take note. RTO is negotiable, like
| everything else. If companies can enforce RTO with zero cost,
| they just might do it.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Thank you! I wish I could promote this (and @crazygringo's
| helpful summary a few min ago) to the top of the thread. The
| rest of the HN commentary so far would've benefited from it a
| lot.
| nemesis17 wrote:
| With the shit show that the current tech industry has turned
| into, unionization is crucial. US has a very low percentage of
| unionized workers compared to Iceland, Finland and Scandinavian
| countries for instance. Time to change and make our voice heard.
| umanwizard wrote:
| In what way do you think the current tech industry has turned
| into a shit show?
| dialup_sounds wrote:
| There's a lot of companies now that expect you to leave the
| house and go work around other people. Like, what the hell?
| Xelynega wrote:
| That's a weird way to say:
|
| "Companies are taking more of people time for the same pay,
| in addition to requiring unpaid commute time".
|
| I usually don't like when I work more for less, do you?
| wiseowise wrote:
| > go work around other people
|
| I'm sure you meant to say "waste time in commute and spend
| 8 hours trying to complete 1 hour of WFH amount of work in
| open office".
| bongodongobob wrote:
| I think tech workers have gotten a little spoiled. At my
| company, we have about 35 people in our IT department. 3/4
| are directors and managers and I honestly have no fucking
| idea what they do all day. 600 people on the IT staff at the
| NYT is insane, and I guarantee the majority of those jobs is
| "attend meetings every day to jerk each other off with 1
| deliverable a week".
| warpeggio wrote:
| > 3/4 are directors and managers
|
| this is a problem. Hiring and career paths are completely
| non-existent for tech people. Most will not get a cost of
| living increase, and the only way to actually increase
| their pay is to update their resume and spend months trying
| to find another position. I dont' know if you've noticed,
| but our job market blows right now.
|
| They may have bought us off for a decade or so, giving us
| benefits that rivaled unionized positions. But over the
| last 20 years, that "bargain" has slowly eroded and now the
| unionized shops are the only ones getting benefits for the
| employees.
|
| Capitalism being what it is, each company MUST pursue the
| lowest costs and highest margin. Without collective
| bargaining, a single worker has no power against the whims
| and desires of board members, to whom you are just a
| rounding error.
|
| "If hard work were good for you, the rich would have it all
| to themselves."
| bongodongobob wrote:
| I'm pro union. I'm just saying I've worked with a lot of
| people with Director in their title that I know don't do
| any actual work other than balance a budget or shuffle
| shit around in spreadsheets once every couple months.
| I've been at my new job almost a year now, and I can't
| believe what people are getting away with. Obviously not
| everywhere is like this, but it's not my first job where
| the rest of the company is completely clueless as to how
| little the IT dept actually does day to day.
| warpeggio wrote:
| I see - I absolutely agree with your assessment that the
| Directors may not be contributing any actual value at
| this point. I would love to see more servant leadership,
| and perhaps have management be an elected position
| instead of one that seems to be reserved for a certain
| Class of person.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| How? How can we go from an HN comment to making this a reality?
| chrnola wrote:
| This book[1] was a great read on the topic.
|
| [1]: https://ethanmarcotte.com/books/you-deserve-a-tech-
| union/
| disambiguation wrote:
| Hell yeah fight the power, and fuck RTO. Literally still have
| heard no good reason except for muh water cooler conversation for
| why we should put up with RTO.
| ratedgene wrote:
| I upvoted you for the sentiment alone.
| disambiguation wrote:
| Makes sense since it's a sentiment based conversation.
| impish9208 wrote:
| From the WSJ's reporting on this:
|
| > Most employees in the tech union receive pay of more than
| $100,000, and average compensation, including bonus and
| restricted stock units, is $190,000, according to a Times
| spokeswoman. That figure is an average of $40,000 more than
| members of the Times's journalist union, she said.
|
| > Times leaders have also bristled at the nature of some of the
| guild's requests. The union previously sought a requirement that
| the company use unscented cleaning supplies and offer a pet
| bereavement policy that included a leave of up to seven days,
| though it has since backed down from those demands.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > That figure is an average of $40,000 more than members of the
| Times's journalist union, she said.
|
| The journalist union should push for an increase too, then.
|
| NYC cost of living is _enormous_.
| michaelt wrote:
| I don't know about the NYT, but in my country newspapers are
| fighting for their lives, financially. Newspapers closing
| down and others laying off staff is a regular occurance.
|
| Print newspapers are essentially dead. Online news? Barely
| anyone pays for that. Online with ads?
| Reddit/twitter/facebook/youtube pay zero dollars for the
| content they put ads on.
|
| If you're in tech and you want to maximise your salary - a
| company's gotta have money before they can give it to you.
| And newspapers don't have money.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The NYT has money.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/04/business/media/new-
| york-t...
|
| > The company's adjusted operating profit for the quarter,
| which ran from July through September, rose 16.1 percent to
| $104.2 million, from $89.8 million a year before. Overall
| revenue increased 7 percent to $640.2 million, compared
| with the same period in 2023.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/07/business/media/new-
| york-t...
|
| > The company's adjusted operating profit for the quarter,
| from April through June, rose to $104.7 million from $92.2
| million a year before. Overall revenue increased 5.8
| percent, to $625.1 million, compared with the same period
| in 2023.
| michaelt wrote:
| Profit of $104.7 million a year. 5800 employees [1]. So a
| profit of $18k per employee.
|
| A $40k wage gap between tech and journalism it'd be nice
| to close.
|
| That's gonna be one difficult negotiation.
|
| [1] https://www.nytco.com/
| ceejayoz wrote:
| These are per-quarter numbers, not annual.
| michaelt wrote:
| Ah, I must have misunderstood the _rose to $104.7 million
| from $92.2 million a year_
|
| Even quadrupling the $18k per employee, you're still
| trying to get a $40k raise from an organisation with a
| profit of $72k per employee. That's going to be tough.
|
| Far tougher than moving to a different job at a company
| with more money.
| candlemas wrote:
| https://archive.is/FXzlC
|
| https://archive.is/D7bzF
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Why are you quoting operating profit instead of net
| income? The expenses included in net income are not
| optional.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I'm quoting the NYT's coverage of their own profitable
| quarter.
|
| Net income seems to be healthy, too.
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/11/04/earns-
| new...
| tootie wrote:
| It's the same in the US, but the NY Times is probably the
| most financially successful newspaper in the world at this
| point. They are not only the #1 news source by reputation,
| they made a huge push into digital very early and sell
| subscriptions to news, gaming (they have the #1 crossword
| and wordle), cooking, product reviews and sports. They
| supposedly make as much money on games as news which is why
| the message from the union has been to boycott wordle
| today.
| linsomniac wrote:
| Sure, but the workers don't have to take a shave to prop up
| a failing business model. Sure, they COULD just go
| somewhere else, but it's reasonable to first negotiate with
| the employer, because, ideally, the employer doesn't want a
| whole section of their workforce to just leave.
|
| When I was much younger, a few years out of high school, I
| ended up being the last developer on a sinking ship, and
| had asked for a pay raise to get me up to where the highest
| paid of the employees who had left were, IIRC that was
| around $5/hr, and was denied. I should have used that as an
| RGE, but instead just hung on until around a year later
| when a job fell into my lap. But the employer would have
| been hurting if I left, and was definitely more expensive
| for them to lose me than it would have to keep me. But in
| the end, the parent company folded a couple years later
| because of a very, very bad bet they made.
| apwell23 wrote:
| nyt makes tons of money from trump news. Its not the same
| as local news. Trump ironically revived "failing new york
| times" .
| bloomingkales wrote:
| I'd make the argument that the NYT is well positioned in
| the AI age to be an authority more so than before. The
| internet will be inundated with AI generated news, and the
| only way to keep your sanity is to check anything with a
| legitimate logo on the top of the site.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Considering the common pay for software devs thats not as high
| as I expect.
|
| The unscented cleaning supplies is a weird request, but it does
| kinda make sense and the cost should be pretty low - don't know
| why they removed that requirement.
| hobs wrote:
| As a person whose very sensitive to scents there's an entire
| world of folks who are debilitated by them!
|
| I can often tell if someone was wearing anything but the mere
| hint of perfume minutes after they've left an area, and
| anything stronger gives me headaches or worse.
| askafriend wrote:
| Great perspective that I wouldn't have considered. Thanks
| for sharing!
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| I am very allergic to many common fragrances and it makes my
| life really uncomfortable very frequently. Some of them are
| worse than others but commercial grade cleaning products are
| some of the worst. And it's not just problematic for me to be
| in the bathroom where they're used, but sometimes entire
| sections of the building that are close to the bathrooms. I
| get immediate physically uncomfortable symptoms and prolonged
| exposure can actually cause ETD and a resulting debilitating
| vertigo where I can't even sit up for five hours and vomit
| the entire time. It's not just fragrances that contribute to
| this but it's a large part of it
|
| The idea that they "bristled" at a union supporting people
| like me is total shit
| caeril wrote:
| You've been mislead on the "common pay" for software
| developers by the overemphasis of total compensation from
| FAANG (partially due to HN bias). Outside of FAANG, most
| developers earn less than you think in the US, and _outside_
| the US, it 's even drastically less.
| schwax wrote:
| It's great the union was pushing for unscented cleaning
| supplies.
|
| I have a friend who is very sensitive to scents. She may not
| be able to work in a typical office again because of it. I'm
| very sensitive to harsh fluorescent lighting and noisy office
| environments and get migraines. You can push through for a
| while but eventually you burn out.
|
| We've also realized we're both "mildly" autistic [1] over the
| last few years, along with quite a few other software
| engineer friends. The sensory sensitivities fall under that
| umbrella.
|
| Tech has traditionally been more accepting of neurodiversity
| than other careers, so it's great to see a tech union raising
| issue like this that don't cost much but make a big
| difference for anyone affected.
|
| [1] Book: Unmasking Autism by Devon Price
| laborcontract wrote:
| From this article:
|
| > The guild said it was asking readers to honor its digital
| picket line by not playing Times Games products, such as
| Wordle, and not using the Cooking app.
|
| I'm not familiar with digital picket lines, why not ask that
| people not read via the site? Tying the picket line to Wordle
| and the cooking app seems to trivialize the importance of the
| team - Wordle was an acquisition!
| dagw wrote:
| My understanding is that, if you judge by traffic, The New
| York Times is actually a cooking blog and online gaming
| platform that dabbles a bit in journalism on the side.
| laborcontract wrote:
| Hilarious but I wouldn't be surprised if it's true. Upon
| some reflection, Marcella Hazan's Tomato Sauce recipe is
| probably the most that i've actively sought the nyt's
| content.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| Locals newspapers were a grocery shopper and a comic book
| that dabbled in journalism as well.
| SilasX wrote:
| Don't forget the classifieds as a critical revenue
| stream.
| tootie wrote:
| I mean, newspapers used to make all their money on
| classified ads which is why Craigslist has killed so much
| local news and Craig Newmark is now donating money to save
| journalism.
| barryrandall wrote:
| Pay-per-word classified ads drove sellers to websites
| that offered better reach for less money.
| bogwog wrote:
| I guess it's because the software engineer union members are
| the ones who run that part
| cowpig wrote:
| Let's put those numbers in perspective:
|
| $100k is about $72k after tax[0].
|
| Suppose I want to support a family in NYC. Average cost of
| living is about $9,000/mo for a family of four[1].
|
| That's $108,000 per year. Or about $36,000 above what I would
| need to support an average 2-kid family, living paycheck-to-
| paycheck.
|
| So if I want to be able to support a family, 100k is not even
| close to enough.
|
| edit: forgot to add the sources
|
| [0] https://www.talent.com/tax-
| calculator?salary=100000&from=yea...
|
| [1] https://livingcost.org/cost/united-states/ny/new-york
| gruez wrote:
| Most families have more than one earner, though.
| bsimpson wrote:
| It'll be curious to see what the ramifications are of
| sending a kid to daycare basically straight away, vs
| rearing him at home until he's ~5.
|
| The costs in cities like NY and SF are so high that many
| kids end up in care as soon as parental leave expires. One
| of the big recent public policies in NYC is "3K," public
| schooling for kids starting at 3 years old.
| vel0city wrote:
| A small sample size, but all of my kids which go to a
| pretty high-end daycare seem to have a bit leg up on
| peers who have stayed home in terms of social skills,
| language, reasoning, and reading. That's not just me
| acting like my kids are the best (of course they are),
| that's those other parents mentioning it to me.
|
| It's practically a college tuition per kid at age 0
| though.
| bogwog wrote:
| Most families don't have a strong union that can negotiate
| a decent wage.
| SilasX wrote:
| "It's not a bad deal because you can just deploy more of
| your household's available labor to earn more."
| gtaylor wrote:
| More than a few do not. You shouldn't have to barely scrape
| by as a single parent in one of the most wealthy countries
| in the world.
| gruez wrote:
| It does when the biggest expenditure category is for a
| positional good (ie. rent). There's only so much land in
| new york and so many apartment units. Being in a wealthy
| country means your peers are also wealthy, which means a
| household with double income can easily outbid a
| household with a single income.
| stego-tech wrote:
| When I see people critique those numbers as being "too high",
| or demands for additional compensation "unreasonable", I can't
| help but think those people don't understand that $100k is very
| much the new $45k of the 2000s, and has much less purchasing
| power than the latter did at the time.
|
| Truth be told, for the present cost of living in the Northeast
| in general, you're looking at a family income of $300k to be
| "comfortable", or a single base income of $200k. That's if you
| want to buy a new car (of which the bulk cost more than $50k),
| a starter home that doesn't need major repairs ($800k+), and
| still have some money left over to save for retirement; in
| cities like NYC and Boston, you're easily looking at $250k
| single/$400k couple for a "Middle Class" existence.
|
| The brutal reality is that _everyone_ who has to work to
| survive is grossly underpaid relative to the current cost of
| living. To ignore this fact (or worse, try to compartmentalize
| it or limit its scope to a reduced "other" category) endangers
| both the economy and the state.
| _heimdall wrote:
| Cost of living has gotten really insane today compared to a
| couple decades ago.
|
| Its pretty easy to go to college on loans and rack up $150k
| in debt for an average 4-year degree. Its easy to spend
| $35k-$50k on a new car, even 10 year old cars in good shape
| are $10k-$15k. Housing costs vary a lot more by area, but I
| think most would agree its extremely expensive these days.
|
| The idea that a young family could have $5,000/mo just in
| debt payments between school, vehicles, and housing is insane
| to me. That doesn't even account for day to day expenses,
| children, vacations, etc.
| tzs wrote:
| > Its pretty easy to go to college on loans and rack up
| $150k in debt for an average 4-year degree.
|
| It isn't easy for a 4-year degree. To get to that level
| generally requires law school or medical school debt or an
| unfunded graduate degree.
|
| For 4-year degrees around 80% of students graduate with
| less than $30k in debt.
|
| For public schools only 7% of graduates have debt above
| $50k. For private nonprofit schools 12% have debt above
| $50k. For private for-profit schools it is 32%.
| _heimdall wrote:
| The University of Alabama has estimates cost for in-state
| attendance of roughly $34k per year [1]. That is their
| general tuition unrelated to what school/department or
| degree you are there for.
|
| That does include estimates for housing, food, books, etc
| so there's wiggle room especially if you have family near
| by and live at home.
|
| For anyone going to school entirely on loans though, you
| wouldn't make it a year with only $30k in debt.
|
| [1] https://afford.ua.edu/cost/
| tzs wrote:
| Sure, but most students at the University of Alabama
| don't go through entirely on loans. Only 42% of them take
| out loans. Median federal loan debt at graduation for
| them is $23k. 8% also take out private loans. The people
| with private loans have a median debt of $59k.
| _heimdall wrote:
| That wasn't actually my point though. My original comment
| was specifically calling out the cost to go to college
| entirely on loans, not what the average student ends up
| borrowing.
|
| To me its less interesting to look at what the average
| person who is able to afford college today borrows to pay
| for it. That's a self-selected population and doesn't
| show what the impact would be on anyone who gets into
| college but doesn't have family money, scholarships, or
| grants to help pay for it.
| gruez wrote:
| >I can't help but think those people don't understand that
| $100k is very much the new $45k of the 2000s, and has much
| less purchasing power than the latter did at the time.
|
| False. $45k in 2005 is only $73k today, when adjusted for
| inflation[1]. Even if you use the most generous
| interpretation of "2000s" to mean 2000, that's only $82k.
|
| [1] https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
| dpkirchner wrote:
| Does that account for increased housing prices? It probably
| doesn't, because housing prices (cash price, per the fed)
| more than doubled since 2005:
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NYSTHPI
| gruez wrote:
| >It probably doesn't,
|
| If you did a 30 second search, you'd see it's factored
| into the CPI, with "Shelter" (which further breaks down
| into rent and owners' equivalent rent) making up 36% of
| the CPI basket.
|
| https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.t02.htm
| dpkirchner wrote:
| Unfortunately, your source is offline, so I couldn't see
| where it got its data.
| gruez wrote:
| It's very much up for me. In any case here's an archived
| version:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20241009171432/https://www.bl
| s.g...
| dpkirchner wrote:
| I meant the original source, the inflation calculator
| site. Anyway, thanks for the figures. House prices more
| than doubled but I guess other things must have become
| cheaper to compensate.
| gruez wrote:
| House prices aren't part of the CPI, but _housing_ (ie.
| rent and owners ' equivalent rent) is. The former is an
| investment but the latter is the thing you actually
| consume.
| joncrocks wrote:
| One possible issue is that the largest component (27% out
| of 26%) is `OER`, which can be detached from reality.
|
| Unless owners are completely in the loop in terms of the
| rental market (which they likely are not, they don't
| rent), they may not come up with good estimates for what
| an equivalent rent would be.
| kayo_20211030 wrote:
| Yes, it's in there. But also, IMO, oer is a dreadful
| metric. It's very laggy, and more opinionated that it
| ought to be. Rent is rent, but oer seems neither fish nor
| fowl. It's a wild survey guess that's off by 6 months.
| vundercind wrote:
| All of my bills say "bull shit".
|
| I'm sure getting it that low means ignoring housing, _and_
| making everything in the "basket of goods" worse.
| gruez wrote:
| >I'm sure getting it that low means ignoring housing
|
| No. https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/owners-equivalent-
| rent-an...
|
| >and making everything in the "basket of goods" worse.
|
| Given that food, energy, and shelter makes up the bulk of
| the CPI, I'm not sure how this can be done. The most
| plausible thing I can think of is "food is less
| nutritious than before", but I doubt that's an actual
| factor. "Food is getting less nutritious so I'm forced to
| shop at whole foods" isn't exactly a popular sentiment.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| How about medical appointments with nurses instead of
| doctors?
|
| I wonder if there is a similar measure for time kids
| spend in school. My kid comes home early every Wednesday,
| and there's are ~15 other early dismissal days during the
| school year too.
|
| I would bet almost everything that relies heavily on
| labor has been increasing in price faster than official
| figures for the basket of all goods and services.
| apwell23 wrote:
| "Food" listed in there is not food at all. Thats some
| cheap filler that isn't really affected by inflation that
| much because of its just cheap garbage subsided by govt.
|
| Look at the junk in this section for exampe
|
| > Cereals and bakery products
|
| And ofcourse all the items in fruits and vegetables had
| the highest inflation.
| gruez wrote:
| >Look at the junk in this section for exampe
|
| >> Cereals and bakery products
|
| >And ofcourse all the items in fruits and vegetables had
| the highest inflation.
|
| A simple check shows this is false. The "Cereals and
| bakery products" category went up by 28.6% since January
| 2020, compared to 17.9% for "Fruits and Vegetables". You
| get similar conclusions if you use compare against
| January 2005.
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUSR0000SAF111
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUSR0000SAF113
| jnordwick wrote:
| You're making a couple mistakes on this.
|
| The first is you're using the Nationwide averages as
| opposed to the regional numbers for New York where a lot
| of these increases are much greater than on the nation.
|
| The second thing is the way it includes housing is by
| using a thing called the owners imputed rent. And what
| that does is it tries to back out the rental from a
| housing unit. The problem is in New York City rent has
| been rising way faster than that.
|
| 30 is the cpi's consistently underestimated a number of
| its own provisions because of the way it does hedonics
| and substitution. It basically says that while meat might
| have risen 50% people switch to fish now and it uses in
| lower value for inflation.
|
| The CPI over the last 30 years have been so massively
| game it's almost useless anymore
| gruez wrote:
| >The first is you're using the Nationwide averages as
| opposed to the regional numbers for New York where a lot
| of these increases are much greater than on the nation.
|
| Another commenter has pointed out new york house prices
| actually rose slower compared to the rest of the country.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42043147
|
| >The second thing is the way it includes housing is by
| using a thing called the owners imputed rent. And what
| that does is it tries to back out the rental from a
| housing unit. The problem is in New York City rent has
| been rising way faster than that.
|
| Most Americans own their home. OER might not be perfect,
| but pretending that they pay market rent doesn't make
| much sense either. Even for people who don't own their
| home, new york has rent control, which provides similar
| inflation protections compared to owning a home.
|
| >30 is the cpi's consistently underestimated a number of
| its own provisions because of the way it does hedonics
| and substitution. It basically says that while meat might
| have risen 50% people switch to fish now and it uses in
| lower value for inflation.
|
| The part about hedonic adjustment is misleading. While
| it's true that such adjustments are used. It's only used
| for small minority of categories (basically clothes and
| technology), and doesn't include stuff like food (like in
| your example).
|
| Meanwhile the part about substitution is straight up
| false:
|
| https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/common-misconceptions-
| abo...
| caeril wrote:
| These are NYC tech workers. "Food" isn't broccoli beef
| stir fry at home for $8. It's dinner at Del Frisco's for
| $300.
|
| You need to understand that when people bitch about the
| "cost of living", they're not speaking in broad terms.
| They're speaking in specific terms, inclusive of their
| insane budgetary choices that they believe are mandatory
| to be seen as high-status.
|
| Yes, you can live just fine on the median income. But in
| order to have your ego stroked as the super important
| high class person that you obviously are, you have to
| spend some money. Choosing to live in NYC in the first
| place is certainly part of that, the rest is just gravy.
| drawkward wrote:
| This was pretty funny. Not particularly believable or
| credible, but definitely funny!
|
| It reads like you are projecting your own beliefs of what
| New Yorkers and tech workers are like, and then screaming
| about _that_ intersection.
| ken47 wrote:
| Can we stick to stats over caricatures? If we're going to
| go by "gut feel," the stereotype is that the status
| climbers primarily go into finance, consulting, medicine,
| and law - not engineering.
| caeril wrote:
| This stereotype was true up until 14 years ago.
|
| My generation is the one that got mercilessly bullied for
| interest in science, engineering, and computers.
|
| Gen Z watched The Social Network and suddenly decided
| that software development was cool. It is, by no means, a
| caricature, since these people graduated. The software
| profession is thoroughly infested by status strivers, at
| this point.
| ken47 wrote:
| My work at FAANG and FAANG-adjacent companies would
| suggest that it's far more probable that a random e.g.
| finance professional is driven primarily by perceived
| status than a software engineer.
|
| The media and general public still openly poke fun at
| tech titans like Mark Zuckerberg and even Jeff Bezos in a
| way that they would never do to e.g. Jamie Dimon. The
| perceived statuses are still incomparable, and I think
| any competent Gen Zer knows it.
| drawkward wrote:
| >infested
|
| Tell me your viewpoint is unreasonably biased without
| telling me your viewpoint is unreasonably biased.
| lordgrenville wrote:
| And median wage in NYC is $74k (according to Google). Sure,
| Manhattan is different, tech salaries are different, etc.
| I'm not claiming that these specific workers
| should/shouldn't be paid more, just that it's really tone-
| deaf to claim that you can't live on <$100k, when more than
| half of New Yorkers do.
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _when more than half of New Yorkers do_
|
| I'm curious about what portion of those that are living
| on $74k or less are doing so solo, and how many are only
| able to do so by racking up debt / getting support from
| family / etc.
|
| I live in an area less expensive than NYC and, at least
| anecdotally in my circles, if you don't have a partner
| (or other assistance like roommates, parents, or
| something along those lines) it seems pretty damn rough
| to get by on ~70k.
| ebiester wrote:
| You have roommates. Or you live in less than 400 sq feet.
| Or you're in an older rent control.
| sashank_1509 wrote:
| I have a good job in the Bay Area, and I spend 4K a
| month. Of course if I were a family, there is no way I
| could support a wife in 4K a month but that is rare
| anyway. If she were working too, I could surely support a
| child in 6k a month. At this cost my life includes:
|
| 1. A Tesla Model 3, on which I spend 1k a month with
| insurance
|
| 2. 1.5k rent for a studio in a good safe location with
| utilities
|
| 3. Rest on groceries, eating out movies etc.
|
| If I decided to get a cheap car, I could easily have 600$
| or more to spend on housing etc. So it would be tight but
| as a single 20s male, I would make it with 50k a year
| after taxes. Everything else just goes into savings. I
| think people have lavish tastes, or no control over their
| spending if they can't make do with 70k a year after
| taxes.
| piltdownman wrote:
| // 2. 1.5k rent for a studio in a good safe location with
| utilities
|
| I actually can't think of an EU Capital where that's
| achievable anymore, bar possibly the socialist outlier of
| Vienna. In Dublin a good studio is at least 2k, and
| you'll pay 52% tax on earnings over EUR70k as well...
| sashank_1509 wrote:
| To be fair, I'm not living in a SF proper, there it would
| cost around 2.5k but still EU is crazy expensive for the
| low wages they get paid.
| geodel wrote:
| But you have data privacy, social net there. You win some
| you lose some.
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _if they can't make do with 70k a year after taxes_
|
| I don't think the median income is after taxes, is it?
| That would be more reasonable, for sure. My comment was
| made in reference to friends who make $70k/yr before
| taxes.
| thfuran wrote:
| No, the bureau of labor household/personal income figures
| are not reported post-tax.
| mushufasa wrote:
| Nah this is just false. I'm a founder and pay myself less
| than our employees, 70k does just fine. I define just
| fine as 'enough so you don't have to be distracted by
| coupon clipping for daily necessities, and can still
| travel on trips and buy splurge purchases like a fancy
| rice cooker or designer couch or fancy cocktails.'
|
| I live alone in a 2br. I don't have assistance from
| family or a partner.
|
| Now, I do not live in a luxury building, and I am not
| building up a nest egg from my salary. And I rent. But
| when people think about the costs of NYC, a lot of people
| forget that you don't need a car, car insurance, or gas.
|
| Where you get into trouble is if you're paying a stupid
| large amount for rent. It is very possible to pay 1-2k /
| month in rent. Most people who move to the city at that
| budget live with roommates initially, but most find a
| really good deal, sometimes rent controlled, organically
| through networks after a year or two of living here.
| Deals are hard to find as they should be, but certainly
| exist, and most longterm locals have a great deal.
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _Nah this is just false._
|
| What is false?
|
| I didn't make any claims other than saying that in my
| circles I see some of my friends and colleagues have
| trouble making it by on $70k. I'm not sure how you would
| be able to tell me that I'm wrong about that. I'm happy
| that you are able to make it on $70k, though.
| mushufasa wrote:
| >I didn't make any claims other than saying that in my
| circles I see some of my friends and colleagues have
| trouble making it by on $70k. I'm not sure how you would
| be able to tell me that I'm wrong about that.
|
| Okay, then let's make this rigorous.
|
| Falsifiable Claim: People live a life of struggle on 70k
| a year in new york, where struggle is defined by constant
| worries of physiological needs, safety, and security, as
| categorized in Manslow's hierarchy of needs.
| https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
|
| Falsified by counterexample.
|
| QED.
|
| For a lot of people, they may mean 'struggle' in the
| sense of living below where they want to be, which is
| relative. Maslow's hierarchy is helpful to categorize.
| ziddoap wrote:
| This might be the most "hackernews" comments I've seen in
| awhile.
|
| Can we maybe just have a normal conversation without
| trying to flex our superior debating skills?
|
| I was curious how many people that make the median wage
| in NYC are living comfortably solo -- that's it!
|
| You're making up claims, disconnected from my comments,
| and then falsifying them yourself in some sort of weird
| self-debating comment.
| wikibob wrote:
| [on a salary of 70k] "I am not building up a nest egg
| from my salary"
|
| You are robbing from your future to live in the present.
|
| This might be ok for you specifically as you are making a
| gamble on your ownership of the startup paying off.
| Perhaps you have a family safety net. Or Perhaps you are
| ok with taking the risk that you don't have enough money
| in your older years.
|
| It's not really ok for standard employees to live that
| way. The USA social contract is that each person must
| self-fund their own retirement. Deferring that savings to
| "later" has truly staggering costs in compound-interest-
| years lost.
| mushufasa wrote:
| "It's not really ok for standard employees to live that
| way."
|
| The majority of standard employees live this way, or with
| less.
| thfuran wrote:
| >and I am not building up a nest egg from my salary
|
| So you can't actually afford to maintain your lifestyle,
| unless your retirement plan is a revolver.
| standardUser wrote:
| It's all about rent. If you've lived somewhere a while
| and have rent control, or you have roommates, or an
| unorthodox living situation (e.g. no kitchen), or can
| find a below-market unit, or some combination of those,
| you can survive on FAR less than someone who is moving to
| the city today and signing a new lease on a market-rate
| 1-bedroom apartment.
| thfuran wrote:
| Doesn't not having a kitchen probably mean you're eating
| out every meal? That's quite expensive.
| standardUser wrote:
| Sometimes it's like a half fridge and a two burner
| electric stove. Maybe you have an air fryer. Maybe you
| just microwave a lot of stuff. Or do like I do, eat a lot
| of simple uncooked meals, like fresh fruits and veggies,
| nuts, smoked fish, cheese, etc. I'm constantly amazed at
| how so many people assume everyone must eat exactly like
| they do.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| You're amazed most people have kitchens? Lol unreal.
| standardUser wrote:
| I'm amazed when someone assumes others must eat out every
| meal if they don't have the ability to broil a roast in
| their home. Though I shouldn't be amazed - the inability
| of people to understand lives that work differently then
| their own seems widespread.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Broil a roast? Now you've really lost me.
| standardUser wrote:
| It was a turn of phrase, most people would understand the
| meaning easily.
| ben_w wrote:
| I personally could live off less than EUR1k/month for
| everything, before buying a house that reduced my costs
| by around EUR400/month.
|
| Just because it's possible, doesn't mean most are willing
| to take the set of preferences in my head that allows me
| to be so cheap and rewire their own brains like that.
| kayo_20211030 wrote:
| There's more in play here than math. An interesting idea is
| the concept of a "Vibecession", coined by Kyla Scanlon.
|
| It's more a focus on how people "feel" about their
| situation than it is math. It's resonant to me.
|
| https://kyla.substack.com/p/the-vibecession-the-self-
| fulfill...
| sodality2 wrote:
| Do you think people should be compensated more because
| they feel poorer, regardless of the actual costs of
| living...? As an avid Scanlon reader I personally think
| you're misrepresenting her position
| kayo_20211030 wrote:
| Nope, I don't have a particular view on what would be
| adequate compensation, although I'm reflexively with
| labor. But it might get to the heart of why people do
| what they do. Why go on strike when the math says you're
| being payed above average on a nationwide basis? People
| are funny that way. Very few are calculators, they're
| just people.
| sodality2 wrote:
| I reckon people want to be paid as much as they can
| bargain for, regardless of their relative income level.
| Besides, it's not just about pay, it's often about
| working conditions.
| kayo_20211030 wrote:
| Yes, and double yes. How these people view (feel about)
| their working conditions is more important to them than
| any explanation of why they ought to, or ought not to,
| feel that way based on some measure of comparative
| economics or conditions. If they want, for whatever
| reason (either allergy or solidarity), a scent-free
| cleaning product and they're willing to strike for it;
| well, why not? It's a political negotiation, a
| bargaining. That's sensible to me. Everything is people
| and politics. It might be justified by math, but it's not
| driven by it.
| sodality2 wrote:
| Of course, but I think people do (and should) bargain for
| as much as they can get. I don't think it should be
| motivated by and only when workers "feel bad" about the
| economy necessarily.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > There's more in play here than math
|
| As in "people feel as though they want to be paid more"?
| You may find the idea interesting and resonant, but how
| does that affect anything? It's still true that they're
| on more than journalists, regardless of how they feel.
| kayo_20211030 wrote:
| Don't underestimate how someone's feeling about something
| animates their actions about the same thing.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Yes, of course. Within their choices, everyone does what
| they want. But that's not something worth bringing into a
| discussion, unless we bring it into every discussion as a
| point to note every time before continuing with the
| actual discussion.
| kayo_20211030 wrote:
| But, isn't that the discussion? That is, why would
| someone earning 100k feel that it's not enough, when all
| economic comparisons, with peers or peer-adjacents,
| insist that it's a load of money? Maybe it is, and maybe
| it's not; but if you go on strike you're probably not
| convinced by what the Fed, the DOL, and HN say.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| No, the discussion was about actual buying power.
| consteval wrote:
| This doesn't account for the fact that cost of living
| doesn't rise at the same rate everywhere. You can't just
| use national statistics for this. It's entirely possible
| that in NYC the cost of living went up more than 2x since
| the 2000s.
| marinmania wrote:
| fwiw the housing price index in New York has actually
| seen lower increase since 2000 than the rest of the
| country
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NYXRSA
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CSUSHPINSA
|
| The same is also true if you use 2005 or 2009 as your
| start date. I agree there is variance in theory, but in
| practice it has been about the same as the national.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| It's remote work though, why would they live in NYC.
| cbhl wrote:
| The more I stare at this the more I think that using
| official inflation numbers / using the official CPI is
| wrong -- these baskets combine recreation and technology
| being nearly -50% (TVs can be had today for $300, whereas
| they used to cost $500 in 1995 dollars), assume you only
| buy new cars (only up ~25% since 2000, but used cars are
| now almost as expensive as new whereas they used to be
| available for half the price or less), and underweight
| housing (basically doubled since 2000, worse if you need to
| move to a HCOL major urban center for employment).
|
| If you are a healthy person living frugally then I think
| the inflation in your personal basket of goods is actually
| higher than the fed numbers would dictate (esp for rent and
| housing).
| smachiz wrote:
| that's a pretty localized in time issue re: used cars.
| There's still covid supply issues being felt in the
| downstream used market as a result of underproduction for
| 2+ years.
|
| https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/spotlight-new-york-
| citys...
| gruez wrote:
| >these baskets combine recreation and technology being
| nearly -50% (TVs can be had today for $300, whereas they
| used to cost $500 in 1995 dollars),
|
| The entire "Recreation commodities" category (which
| includes other stuff like "Sporting goods" and "Pets and
| pet products") is only weighed at 2%, compared to 13% for
| food and 37% for shelter. Even if it's down 50% the
| impact on the overall CPI is negligible.
|
| >assume you only buy new cars (only up ~25% since 2000,
| but used cars are now almost as expensive as new whereas
| they used to be available for half the price or less),
|
| ???
|
| There's clearly a "Used cars and trucks" category.
|
| >and underweight housing (basically doubled since 2000,
| worse if you need to move to a HCOL major urban center
| for employment).
|
| The index is called "Consumer Price Index for All Urban
| Consumers", not "Consumer Price Index for Young Urban
| Professionals". Not everyone is a recent graduate who
| recently moved into a high COL city and paying for a
| market rate apartment. For every person fitting that
| criteria, there's probably also a retiree who owns their
| house and/or lives in a rent controlled apartment.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| > The index is called "Consumer Price Index for All Urban
| Consumers", not "Consumer Price Index for Young Urban
| Professionals". Not everyone is a recent graduate who
| recently moved into a high COL city and paying for a
| market rate apartment.
|
| The discussion here is about the cost of living
| difference for tech workers who I assume are clustered
| around NYC.
|
| $45K in NYC in 2005 is not equivalent to $73K today for
| most such people. It is likely closer to $100K today, as
| the above poster said.
| baron816 wrote:
| The thing you always need to keep in mind about CPI is that
| it's a weighted average for the ENTIRE COUNTRY. Like,
| retirees in Florida who own their own homes have a very
| different relationship with prices than young renters in
| NYC. It really only makes sense to use CPI and other
| inflation figures when you're talking about the whole
| country.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| That's assuming that headline inflation numbers from the
| government are an accurate representation of reality.
|
| But they're not.
| macinjosh wrote:
| No one cares that they can buy a 4k TV for $400. We want
| healthy food that we can regularly afford. That costs $400
| a week for a family. These government indexes are
| incredibly warped.
| Kerrick wrote:
| If you assume a family of four with both children aged
| 9-11 and the parents a male and a female aged 19-50, the
| USDA says [0] it costs only $250.10 with a low-cost plan,
| $314.90 with a moderate-cost plan and $380 with a liberal
| plan. All three of these plans each support "a healthy
| diet through nutritious meals and snacks at home" [1] and
| would cover everything -- no restaurant budget required.
|
| [0]: https://www.fns.usda.gov/cnpp/usda-food-plans-cost-
| food-mont...
|
| [1]: https://www.fns.usda.gov/cnpp/low-moderate-liberal-
| food-plan...
| JohnMakin wrote:
| measures of core inflation that sites like this use leave
| out many things that massively impact purchasing power -
| namely food, fuel, and interest rates. When factoring these
| in, the gp comment is quite reasonable, as those costs have
| soared in the last 20 years for the typical household.
| gruez wrote:
| >measures of core inflation that sites like this use
| leave out many things that massively impact purchasing
| power - namely food, fuel,
|
| Those are literally part of the CPI.
|
| >interest rates
|
| The "C" in "CPI" stands for consumer. Unless you're
| taking out loans to buy your groceries, interest rates
| shouldn't be a factor on your expenditures.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| "Official" inflation numbers are fraudulent and have always
| been. Real life situations is what matters, because we're
| dealing with real people.
|
| The Soviet Union "officially" had the highest production of
| food per capita in the world, yet they had to import food.
| Because you cannot eat government statistics.
| stego-tech wrote:
| I had a feeling someone would dredge up a basic calculator
| and make this argument.
|
| The problem with your retort is it ignores the very context
| I outlined above. The present rate of inflation _appears_
| more manageable, but because most of it is driven by absurd
| inflation in shelter and transport costs (homes and cars),
| those two areas are starkly higher than inflation overall -
| as much as 50% or more, in some metros.
|
| So while your napkin math makes for a good soundbite, the
| reality is that it just hides the complex truth of
| inflation. So yes, while $45k might be inflation-equivalent
| to $73k today, that purchasing power is significantly
| different. $43k in the 2000s could buy you a starter home
| in most states, albeit not in most metros; nowadays, $73k
| can't even cover basic necessities in many states and all
| metros, not without significant sacrifices.
|
| So my point still stands.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Remote work made so much sense for all the reasons you've
| listed.
| stego-tech wrote:
| And yet, remote work alone is not the solution to this
| issue. For those of us unable to drive, we must live in
| expensive cities with comprehensive mass transit systems if
| we want a decent quality of life and opportunities. For
| those of us who are LGBTQ+, we might not have the safety or
| support structures to thrive in different states. For those
| with chronic health issues, living in states with better
| patient protection laws or healthcare subsidies may be a
| necessity, driving up our costs on housing or transport to
| ensure our survival.
|
| This is a global problem, and it requires solutions at all
| levels. Remote work is amazing, and I 100% support it (and
| exist on hybrid despite being in a major metro), but we
| need more on a local, state, and federal level as well.
| Heck, it's so bad that we can't even blame a singular or
| group of enployers anymore: the _system_ is broken, and
| desperately needs updating so it can work again.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > I can't help but think those people don't understand that
| $100k is very much the new $45k of the 2000s
|
| It _really_ isn 't.
| kylebenzle wrote:
| I'd bet it's young people making these outlandish
| comparisons.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| > I can't help but think those people don't understand that
| $100k is very much the new $45k of the 2000s
|
| Yeah but if they're remote they can live in cheaper parts of
| the country so the 100K+ range of inner expensive cities is
| less justified and they're competing on a country wide
| market.
| interludead wrote:
| You're absolutely right. Purchasing power has shifted in just
| a couple of decades
| z3ncyberpunk wrote:
| So what, if it costs you 300k to be comfortable then you are
| being suckered. When people are struggling to make it by on
| $30 and $40k and see these privileged propagandists complain
| about making six figures, no one has sympathy.
| kylebenzle wrote:
| Here, here!
|
| Minimum wage is $15,000/yr.
|
| With an MS in the life sciences I can make $16/ at the big
| local public university doing research.
|
| Anyone making over $100k is doing fine and has no sympathy
| from me.
| dan-0 wrote:
| Sorry, I don't see a valid point in any of these salary
| arguments. In fact, they're down right insulting and
| ignorant.
|
| I did strenuous manual labor for next to nothing once upon
| a time. After about 8 years of that, on top of regular 60
| hour work weeks, I spent almost every waking moment of 4-5
| years to learn and better myself with about every sacrifice
| you could imagine short of divorce. I'm now making
| significantly more and working much less with an extremely
| happy family.
|
| I'm not some trust fund kid. I have a high school
| education. My father worked 3-5 jobs to provide for my
| family growing up. So if you haven't picked it up, I know
| what the other side looks like.
|
| I work in tech now, I wouldn't even reply to a recruiter
| presenting a 190k job offer if it meant living in New York.
| I can get more working remote. It's not because I'm
| spoiled, it's not because I make bad financial decisions,
| it's because I know my value and won't compromise and I
| sure won't reduce my family's quality of life because some
| multi million dollar company wants to short change me.
|
| I get paid fairly for my experience and what I bring to the
| table, I make sure of that. If my employer isn't matching
| what I know I can get on the market, I will first negotiate
| (which is right where the NYT Tech workers are at), then
| leave for greener pastures if that falls through. I can do
| that because I worked hard to bring more value to myself in
| an in demand field.
|
| I'm sorry if you're making a lower salary, but that doesn't
| mean everyone should just take what they're given. That's
| how people are exploited.
|
| These arguments aren't just wrong. They are backwards and
| self limiting.
| 9x39 wrote:
| There are many commenters that talk past each other given
| the emotionally charged topics of unions, pay,
| negotiations, etc. I think this is one of them.
|
| What I read from parent is that lifestyle inflation must
| be high in some of these demographics when the rhetoric
| used is about survival, despite evidence of many more
| people 'surviving' on far less income.
|
| What I read from you is that you fiercely maintain
| negotiating power because you can and feel it's only
| right given your high value. Why WOULD anyone leave money
| on the table, after all?
|
| Both can be true.
| borkt wrote:
| I make ~30,000/yr doing seasonal physical work. Prior to this
| role I was a municipal engineer. Be careful what you
| whistleblow.
| stego-tech wrote:
| At the end of the day, we're all on the same side. I make
| ~5x the rest of my household combined, but spend a
| plurality of my time and energy advocating for their
| enrichment and support because I know that if they're taken
| care of, I will be too, when I really need it.
|
| If you have to work to live, then we're on the same side,
| and we all deserve more money to help us offset this cost
| of living crisis.
| setgree wrote:
| Purchasing power is part of the equation. Part of the dispute
| is about mandating that workers come into the office at least
| part time, which basically means living in a high-cost area.
|
| However, journalism in general is a struggling business,
| which will probably push wages down on average across the
| profession.
|
| Double however, the NYT has been doing really well at
| adapting to the modern media landscape and currently has
| record subscribers and profits [0], so I can see why the
| union thought it would be a good time to play hardball.
|
| Triple however, I'd quibble a bit with your numbers, even if
| I think the overall point is well taken. It might be hard to
| live on the UES on 100K. It's not so hard to live by the
| Cortelyou stop in Brooklyn or in Sunset Park, both lovely
| areas.
|
| [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/07/business/media/new-
| york-t...
| no_wizard wrote:
| Funny enough that it's always "too high" for non executives
| but executive pay is never policed and any attempts to do so
| are met with fierce resistance.
|
| Which reminds me of another thing. A good friend of mine is
| currently getting their MBA from a fairly well regarded
| school. One thing they recently learned about is structuring
| compensation. The general adage is that whatever you pay an
| employee must be in reflection of the multiple you get back
| from that employee. For example a ratio of 5:1 would be for
| every 1 dollar you pay you get 5 back.
|
| When you start thinking about it like that, you realize just
| how underpaid people are. So many companies - in fact the
| vast majority - it's much higher, in tech for example it's
| usually around 10:1 and often as high as 25:1 or more.
|
| This makes it much more straightforward in understanding
| things and the power imbalance when thinking about it like
| this
| Xelynega wrote:
| It is interesting that the person you're replying to used
| the compensation numbers for other guild employees rather
| than executives. I wonder why they made that decision
| geodel wrote:
| Well executives are few and non-executives are many. So
| total outgoing money is more as per accounting department.
| Nothing funny or conspiratorial here.
|
| > A good friend of mine is currently getting their MBA from
| a fairly well regarded school...
|
| Let that good friend of yours get actual job in some non-
| superlative companies like Wall street banks or FAANG. They
| will learn how their fantastical ratios of 5:1, 10:1, or
| 25:1 work in real life.
|
| > ... you realize just how underpaid people are...
|
| If that were true those 100s of thousands companies be
| making enormous unheard of profits. But that doesn't seem
| to be happening.
| xcrjm wrote:
| Just because _you_ can 't be comfortable in a used car with a
| fixer upper home doesn't mean other people can't be. You're
| talking about your preferences like they're a bare minimum
| and they're not. Plenty of people live perfectly comfortable
| lives without those luxuries.
| stego-tech wrote:
| Careful with those assumptions. I drive a 16-year old used
| Honda and have already set aside cash for necessary home
| repairs when I finally buy a place. However, I do refuse to
| spend half a million dollars on an uncared-for shithole
| that hasn't been renovated or repaired since the 60s; I
| have _standards_ , and one of them involves not paying
| inflated rates for someone else's crap, especially when
| doing so also eradicates my budget for repairs and
| maintenance.
|
| You're right that personal standards, subjective as they
| are, can make an argument highly misleading. However, you'd
| be careful not to make the mistaken assumption that _your_
| personal standards are the norm, either.
|
| I'm seeing a lot of "you're wrong, no sympathy for anyone
| over $100k" responses to my argument here, all of them
| making the same assumptions: that anyone making that much
| dosh must _obviously_ be whinging about paying more for
| their Maserati or unable to afford rent on that high-rise
| condo anymore. Everyone is extrapolating some false
| narrative despite overwhelming evidence that even the most
| highly-paid among us are getting squeezed out of the
| housing market or struggling to make ends meet, and that's
| exactly what the powers that be (people who _don't_ have to
| work to live, because they have all the money) want us to
| devolve into.
|
| At the end of the day, there's exactly two groups: those
| who _must_ work to survive, and those who don't need to due
| to immense wealth. Statistically speaking, you're never
| going to be the latter, so you should be just as concerned
| about "highly paid" workers struggling to make ends meet as
| you are "low-skilled" workers, because _we're all workers_.
| quotemstr wrote:
| And it's the uneven propagation of price information through
| the popular consciousness that makes inflation so insidious.
| You're absolutely right: a lot of people are calibrated on
| 2010 prices for income despite 2024 prices for expenses.
| stego-tech wrote:
| I will unashamedly admit I was one of those people until
| recently. When I got into the housing market, I thought
| $650k for a turnkey property fit for four adults would be
| sufficient, with another $70k set aside for repairs and
| projects (HVAC, oil tank removal, etc).
|
| Turns out I was wrong, and my failure to adapt my standards
| has likely cost me an opportunity to own a home sans a
| significant pay rise.
|
| Once I accepted that new data, however, I was able to see
| the immense gap between reality and expectation, as well as
| understand that it's not necessarily my fault for missing
| that opportunity. I went with the widely-propagated
| programming for new homeowners at the time, and missed the
| pitfalls despite my ample additional research. Housing is
| _complicated_ , and it's the biggest hindrance to a more
| stable, equitable, and productive society in my personal
| opinion.
| quotemstr wrote:
| I thank my lucky stars I was able to get something like a
| 2.5% mortgage locked in in a few years ago
| rolandog wrote:
| I'd love it if we could tie down salaries in terms of what
| they can pay for:
|
| - Minimum is 1.0 Living Wage (tm) (after taxes, rent,
| insurance, utilities, savings... you get to eat 3 meals and 2
| snacks per person per home).
|
| Having the mental stress of trying to determine when would be
| the right moment to approach the moody boss to make a case
| for your livelihood shouldn't be a thing.
|
| I'd like the freedom of not having to pay the time tax of
| determining if I'll make rent or not...
| jkestner wrote:
| I don't give a shit whether the workers are asking for "too
| much", whether they've got a cushy desk job, whether they
| want to eat avocado toast and drive a nice car. Everyone's
| entitled to whatever they can bargain for. Applying some kind
| of value judgement to it is doing ownership's work for free.
| corimaith wrote:
| Pretty sure other countries with similar CoL but much lower
| salaries are handling a middle class existence fine. 100k is
| literally better than 99% of other countries, if that isn't
| good enough what is?
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| People will laugh at it, but pet bereavement should absolutely
| be a thing. The saddest I've ever been in my life was when my
| dog died. Perhaps seven days is a bit much, but when you go to
| the bargaining table you don't start with what you want, you
| start past that point then negotiate down.
| apwell23 wrote:
| yep same. It hit me harder than some of my human relatives. I
| had hard time getting out of bed for days.
| amonon wrote:
| I felt the same but my preference is to have enough PTO to
| take off for that.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Yes, the fairest and least corruptible system is to just
| provide PTO. People can use it however they see fit.
| thefourthchime wrote:
| I think the issue is that it comes off as egregiously woke.
| dbalatero wrote:
| It's woke to grieve important members of your household?
| You don't think that's a little reactionary?
| richwater wrote:
| pets aren't people
| dbalatero wrote:
| So?
| kylebenzle wrote:
| It makes no sense as a policy.
| wiseowise wrote:
| It makes no sense until it happens to you and your
| manager doesn't give a shit.
| snozolli wrote:
| "Woke" makes absolutely zero sense here. I think the word
| you're looking for is "sensitive".
| wiseowise wrote:
| Anything you don't like is woke. No sexist jokes in
| office? Woke. Bro culture is frowned upon? Woke. Can't
| make jokes about gay and black people? Woke, woke, woke.
| latentcall wrote:
| Feelings are woke. Caring about anything or anybody is
| woke.
| brandall10 wrote:
| Same. My boy pug dying in 2019 was so distressful that I was
| coughing up blood the following morning. My father had a
| massive heart attack a couple months later and I was still
| numb to the point where I couldn't process it emotionally.
|
| For some, esp. those who choose to be childless, a
| relationship like that is probably the closest we'll come.
|
| I was happy the startup I worked at during that time allowed
| me to take a week off as sick pay... sent flowers with a
| handwritten note from our HR leader the following morning,
| but I opted to come back after a couple days as I needed to
| take my mind off things.
| interludead wrote:
| Sometimes, those small acts of kindness in hard times can
| make a world of difference
| interludead wrote:
| Absolutely, pet bereavement should be taken seriously. Losing
| a pet can be one of the most devastating experiences, often
| comparable to losing a close family member. Pets are part of
| our daily lives, routines, and emotional support systems
| kylebenzle wrote:
| I'm sorry for you loss but it's silly nonetheless to try and
| codify a solution to an individuals issues.
| alistairSH wrote:
| _The saddest I 've ever been in my life was when my dog
| died._
|
| I take it you've never lost a child? Because I've lost both
| and sad as it was, losing a dog doesn't even come close.
| Losing the dog was sad, but I got over it and eventually
| adopted another pup. Losing the child was so unimaginably
| awful that I struggle to find the words...
|
| Police knocking on my door at 2am to tell me. Calling my wife
| at 2:30am to tell her (she was away on business). Waiting for
| her to find a flight home. The funeral. Dealing with the
| estate. Waking up every few weeks feeling like it was all a
| nightmare, only to realize it was not.
|
| It's fucking awful.
| wiseowise wrote:
| I'm sorry about you child, but it doesn't mean that we have
| to belittle someone's grief because you've had it worse.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| The only thing the times has to worry about is whether or not
| they can get other tech workers in the door to undercut the
| union.
|
| When the union was formed in 2021, tech workers were insanely
| in demand and carried basically all the chips. But now that
| that has cooled significantly, and many tech workers are having
| trouble finding work, the union is in a precarious position of
| being founded on ideals of 2021, but having to negotiate with
| the reality of 2024.
| dartos wrote:
| The 2nd quote is kind of funny, but the first one isn't.
|
| Tech generates more money than the Times. It makes sense that
| the employees should be paid to reflect that.
|
| I don't think there's anything wrong with high paid workers
| striking for even higher pay. It's not like the suits don't
| hoard bonuses for themselves.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Tech generates more money than the Times._
|
| It's the journalists that create the content for the tech
| end. Without them, there would be no Times tech employees.
| piltdownman wrote:
| To reductio ad absurdum, without the advertisers there'd be
| no journalists.
|
| The problem remains that with the advertisers, there cannot
| be journalism.
|
| Little distinguishes much of american mass-media
| 'journalism' from a ChatGPT precis of a Press Release or
| Reuters/AP wire. What does is generally in the form of an
| Op-Ed, and is generally at the behest or bias of a
| billionaire or their lobbying proxy.
|
| In 2024 this has gotten to the point where America's
| Largest Newspaper chain will not endorse a presidential
| candidate out of fear. That's 200+ separate publications.
|
| https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/29/media/usa-today-
| gannett-n...
|
| Both the advertisers and the journalists rely on the Tech
| Employees as their core dependency for distribution and
| scaling factor, and are weighted in compensation
| accordingly. Much as it ever was - the people selling
| adspace and doing the logistics of distribution always made
| more than the people writing copy or typesetting.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| > Little distinguishes much of american mass-media
| 'journalism' from a ChatGPT precis of a Press Release or
| Reuters/AP wire.
|
| The Reuters/AP wire is journalism.
| jkestner wrote:
| They're all in it together. The journalists should strike
| for everything they want as well!
| dartos wrote:
| I meeean... if they have the negotiating power then they
| should.
| shagie wrote:
| https://www.threads.net/@astor.maggie/post/DB82iPoxKMC
|
| > Some background: The Tech Guild represents hundreds of
| software engineers, product designers, data analysts and
| others who make and run our website, apps, games and
| publishing systems. It's a sister to my union, the NYT
| Guild, which reps the newsroom (and advertising, security
| & more!).
|
| > The NYT Guild contract contains a no-strike clause.
| That means we in the newsroom are legally forbidden to go
| on strike with Tech. So we will be supporting them in
| other ways, some of which you can also do.
| loeg wrote:
| Something like half of NYT subscribers are only there for
| the games (tech side).
| wiseowise wrote:
| Without office and cleaners there would be no Times.
| fmbb wrote:
| What's the point of a comment listing numbers like this?
|
| Have you looked at what the owners of the New York Times make
| and compared that to the average "newspaper owner" in the US?
| somesortofthing wrote:
| Journalist salaries, especially at prestigious piblications,
| are quite famously set such that only people who can rely on
| external support to the tune of 5-6 figures a year can become
| journalists. It makes sense that the journalists union would
| prioritize things other than salary in bargaining - their W2
| job isn't where their money comes from.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Related:
|
| Official NewsGuild of New York release:
|
| _New York Times Tech Guild Walks Off The Job_
|
| https://nyguild.org/post/new-york-times-tech-guild-walks-off...
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Alternative non-NYT link (submission link could be changed to
| this too I suppose):
|
| _New York Times Tech Guild Walks Off the Job_
|
| https://nyguild.org/post/new-york-times-tech-guild-walks-off...
| DataDaemon wrote:
| We demand interventional purchase of our software.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| From Oct. 23:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2024/10/23/new-yo...
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| This strike seems very poorly messaged. As far as I can tell, the
| union hasn't given any public explanation of what specific
| demands management won't meet. The union website doesn't even
| mention that they're on strike!
| davidw wrote:
| Here's one from me: down with "the needle"!
| cooljacob204 wrote:
| It's a very young union, started in 2021.
| bee_rider wrote:
| > Negotiations between it and the Times hit logjams over things
| like a "just cause" provision that prevents the company from
| firing workers unless it's for something like misconduct, as
| well as pay increases, pay equity, and return-to-office
| policies, reports the Times.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/4/24287600/new-york-times-t...
|
| I dunno. It is a negotiation between the union and the company.
| They might not have prepared much marketing material because
| they aren't really selling anything to those of us in the
| general public, right?
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Interesting. I spot checked the Boeing strike, and it does
| seem like unions often aren't too specific about their
| demands in public. I guess a lot of stuff that I thought came
| from unions is actually coming from internal reports like
| this.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I know some folks who've done union organizing a bit,
| although I'm personally not that interested in it, so take
| this with a HUGE grain of salt.
|
| But I think appealing to the general public is a tool in
| the toolset, something they consider, but not an automatic
| go-to. Ultimately, the NYT tech guild doesn't actually want
| the general public to think their boss is a "bad guy,"
| right? Like, getting the general public to boycott their
| employer too effectively is a risk to their own paychecks,
| haha.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| That's true, makes perfect sense.
| 9dev wrote:
| As a foreigner it's so alien to me that such a provision
| isn't mandated by law anyway, and that there isn't broad
| support in the population to restrict employers from firing
| at will... wild.
| gcr wrote:
| Exactly! US workers have to fight tooth and nail for things
| that employees can just expect from other countries. That's
| why strikes like this are such a big deal.
| jdross wrote:
| because working with poor performing coworkers is soul
| crushing, and having a bad boss even worse
| chis wrote:
| An an American it's hard for me to imagine how companies
| could ever work with universal protections from firing at
| will. What if you're running a painting business, and
| there's a downturn in construction. Do you just have to pay
| people to do nothing, since they haven't done anything
| wrong and aren't allowed to be fired? Or what if a large
| company needs to make a strategic pivot and fire some
| employees to hire others with a different skillset.
|
| It seems like economists do consider this to be one of the
| big reasons why the U.S. economy has grown so much faster
| than the EU. Hiring in Europe is much riskier, so companies
| would rather stay small.
| hamandcheese wrote:
| In all those cases, it sounds like the company would
| actually suffer the consequences of their prior
| mismanagement (compared to today where mostly just
| employees suffer from bad management decisions).
|
| Yes, that means some companies might go under when they
| could have saved themselves by mass layoffs. I'd be okay
| with that trade.
|
| Yes, that means growth might slow down to more reasonable
| levels. I'd be okay with that trade. Europe isn't booming
| economically like the US, but if you've ever traveled
| there, their quality of life seems perfectly fine, and
| costs are much lower.
| phil21 wrote:
| > Europe isn't booming economically like the US
|
| This would be an extreme understatement.
|
| > but if you've ever traveled there, their quality of
| life seems perfectly fine
|
| I'm not sure if traveling there is much of an indicator
| of anything. Doing business there over the course of many
| years might be a very basic table stakes start to get any
| idea of what is happening. Even then it will have large
| blind spots. Most folks traveling to Europe are also
| traveling to the richest parts of the richest countries
| and ignoring the rest.
|
| Inertia is a hell of a drug. For how much longer can
| western Europe stagnate and continue to fall behind the
| entire world little by little? There are bright spots,
| but those seem to becoming fewer and further in between.
| Talk with the younger generations and you may start to
| get different answers than you expect.
|
| The US system certainly isn't how I'd design things
| today, but I very much would avoid what the EU is
| seemingly running headlong into. How much of that has to
| do with worker protection laws is certainly highly
| debatable though.
| pennomi wrote:
| There are usually provisions for firing people due to
| financial hardship or having too few contracts. The
| employer must declare the reason, but if it's found out
| that they lied, there is an avenue for the worker to get
| compensated.
| adolph wrote:
| Sounds like a recipe for permanent lawyer employment.
| henrikgs wrote:
| That's not how it works at all. Of course you can fire
| someone with proper cause, you just can't fire someone
| __at will__. Lack of demand for the position is proper
| cause. If you don't need staff you can fire them, but you
| cannot fire someone and hire someone else in the same
| position.
| pc86 wrote:
| What's the argument to not be able to fire someone
| because you can hire someone with better or relevant
| skills instead? That makes the business stronger, which
| means it can make more money, which means it can hire
| more people.
| henrikgs wrote:
| Well the arguments are many, and the counter-arguments
| also many. The point of my comment was not say that the
| (typically European) system is better, but it's not like
| described as parent commenter where you cannot fire
| people and are stuck with too much staff. That is not the
| case. I wasn't really arguing for it being better for the
| company and/or society.
|
| Relevant skill could be proper cause. You can absolutely
| fire someone for not having the skills you need and hire
| someone else with the right skillset.
| freejazz wrote:
| I don't think a lack of imagination is a particularly
| American trait.
| deltaknight wrote:
| In this scenario, you would go through redundancy
| processes instead of simply firing people.
|
| Depending on the laws and the country, it involves
| consultations, handing out offers for alternative roles
| in the company, mandatory notice periods and timelines,
| and severance pay.
|
| Or what many multinationals do, you offer non-legally-
| redundancy severance deals by paying the employees out.
|
| Severance already happens in many industries in the US,
| however it's generally only for those paid very well,
| which arguably need the legal protections less. So such
| laws are designed to level the play field and prevent
| abuse of the system. For instance, if you make an
| accountant redundant, you can't go and hire another one
| for a period of time because that means the role was
| required the whole time. If you want to remove a specific
| person from a role, you fire them for cause (say bad
| culture fit or inadequate work) or offer them a payout to
| leave.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| For a start all implementations of such protections i'm
| aware of don't apply till you have over X employees which
| rules out your specific example. eg. Australia allows
| businesses with under 15 employees to fire at will. Small
| businesses have very little employee protection for
| exactly the reason you stated; You need to be able to
| hire/fire since each individual employee is such a large
| part of your workforce. It's generally understood that if
| you work for a small employer you are more at risk
| because of this. Large employers are seen as a safer job.
|
| So these protections are always tradeoffs. You can
| actually earn more at the smaller companies and those
| places are typically good to get your foot in the door.
| The larger companies where these protections apply can
| afford to follow the process and having the process there
| gives stability that some people need in a career.
|
| I actually think it comes down to the viewpoints on
| careers. There's no risk to any particular business since
| the laws are written to only target business that can
| reasonably follow the process. There is a different
| viewpoint on working at bigger stable companies vs
| smaller companies though. One's seen as a stable career
| and the others seen as temporary (of course exceptions
| apply).
| bee_rider wrote:
| There's a huge gap between at-will-employment and no
| ability to fire people at all.
|
| FWIW, it looks like 11 US states have "Implied covenant-
| of-good-faith and fair dealing" which mean "an employee
| may only get fired for a reasonable, lawful, and
| sufficient reason." The list is also interestingly
| bipartisan, Alabama, Utah, and Massachusetts are on
| there. And it must not hurt business too much, since
| Massachusetts has that very high GDPPP stat.
|
| https://clockify.me/learn/business-management/at-will-
| employ...
| screye wrote:
| > Do you just have to pay people to do nothing
|
| There are shades of grey. Large institutions should fall
| back on other means (reduced hours, pay cuts, comfortable
| severance, longer heads-up for firing) before resorting
| to overnight-mass-layoffs.
|
| > why the U.S. economy has grown so much faster than the
| EU
|
| Again, shades of grey.
|
| The economy is a means to an end. If economic growth
| leads to worse life-outcomes for the populace, when
| what's the point of having a 'powerful economy'. Now,
| govt. policies shouldn't knee cap the economy. But, let's
| not tunnel vision on it as the sole indicator of
| development.
|
| In my experience, Europeans with a $80k wage live better
| lives than American tech workers on $300k. To put in
| concrete light : most American tech workers get 14 days
| of vacation a year. All that work and all that money, and
| you only get to enjoy 2 weeks a year in the world's
| richest country ? That's pathetic.
| gotoeleven wrote:
| Perhaps there is a link between at will employment and
| competitive, thriving businesses.
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| States are free to implement such provisions to protect
| their workers, in fact not all states are "at will".
|
| As a foreigner, do not forget that USA have several
| government layers, federal ones and state ones.
| umanwizard wrote:
| > As a foreigner
|
| I strongly suspect that, as usual in discussions like this,
| by "foreigner" you specifically mean "European" or
| "Canadian" or "Australian".
|
| The US is surely not alone in having a relative lack of
| legally mandated job security.
| Xelynega wrote:
| It's unique in that it's a country with h western values
| with relatively underdeveloped worker protections.
|
| Sure places like Saudi have literal slavery, but they
| don't pretend to value life either.
| umanwizard wrote:
| "Western values" is too broad, IMO. The US and Europe are
| fundamentally different civilizations despite a shared
| cultural root (centuries ago).
| potato3732842 wrote:
| > They might not have prepared much marketing material
| because they aren't really selling anything to those of us in
| the general public, right?
|
| NYT isn't a highly regulated interstate employer like Boeing
| or the rail industry or the dockworkers so it's dispute with
| the union isn't a de-facto matter of national politics like
| those strikes were so appealing to the public to have a
| particular opinion on the matter is not of as much use
| therefore neither side of this dispute has invested heavily
| in it.
| xnx wrote:
| > more than 600 software developers
|
| Does anyone have a sense for how this breaks down? I would never
| have guessed so many full-time employees were necessary to
| maintain a CMS.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| Is this comment made every time by hacker news people?
|
| "I run my basement website with in my spare time? Why can't one
| of the most popular websites in the world run on gum and a few
| paper clips"
| zo1 wrote:
| > "Why can't one of the most popular websites in the world
| run on gum and a few paper clips"
|
| The answer is almost always: Cloud Costs, Kubernetes and
| Resume-driven architectures.
| binarymax wrote:
| Maybe that's part of it but there are so many moving parts
| in a near-realtime CMS and world class publishing platform,
| so 600 people doesn't surprise me when you consider the
| scope and scale of the NYT
| xnx wrote:
| Fair question. Having not worked at an organization like the
| New York Times, I really don't know. 5 people would obviously
| be too few, and 2,000 people would be too many. Hacker News
| handles a huge amount of traffic to dynamic pages with
| basically zero (by comparison) technical maintenance. Twitter
| (though not doing well as a business) was overloaded with
| tech employees.
| aranelsurion wrote:
| > Hacker News handles a huge amount of traffic to dynamic
| pages with basically zero (by comparison) technical
| maintenance.
|
| Hacker News isn't exactly the kind of website for many
| millions of Internet users to engage with. Its interface
| and features work well for the kind of niche it serves,
| which is much smaller compared to many other websites. HN
| (at least the user-facing parts) seem to run on mostly the
| same code for years, where NYT likely needs to build many
| interactive, one-off features for the flavor of the day
| topic.
|
| > Twitter (though not doing well as a business) was
| overloaded with tech employees.
|
| I read this a lot and maybe it has a truth to it, though I
| remember before the Great Layoff of 2023 there was a time
| when Twitter was trying (and AFAICT often failing) to grow
| its business. One example is that they've tried (and
| failed) short-form videos way before Tiktok started.
| Today's Twitter seem to be in maintenance mode, and
| operates with less people.
|
| Maybe it was 'overloaded' in the sense that it was the kind
| of business that could never grow and shrinking it down to
| the size where it can be profitable and squeezing it hard
| was the way to go, that I cannot know.
| runako wrote:
| > Hacker News handles a huge amount of traffic to dynamic
| pages
|
| Traffic is not the primary driver of staffing. For a simple
| app, it is relatively straightforward to use commodity
| cloud offerings to scale to large volumes of traffic. Even
| something as simple as Heroku + a CDN can take a small team
| a long way.
|
| But the NYT is not a simple app. I'm not even willing to
| accept that their CMS needs could be handled with an off-
| the-shelf CMS without modification. Without having worked
| there, I can see:
|
| - CMSs for text/images, audio, video content - syndication
| for audio content - custom? subscription system - some kind
| of interface to the printing system - bespoke game studio -
| Web dataviz studio
|
| plus all the stuff needed to run a company as big as the
| NYT, which will include lots of integrations between things
| like payroll, accounting, 3P ad networks, reporting, HR
| software, etc.
|
| I haven't even included the people who might make use of
| the copious data generated by the business.
|
| These things add up fast.
|
| > Twitter (though not doing well as a business)
|
| That's a heck of a caveat! Most businesses aim to do well
| as businesses, so current Twitter is not a great model.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Twitter was doing way better as a business when it was
| "overloaded with tech employees" than it's doing now.
|
| If anything, the cloud to onprem migration was best and
| maybe only move from Elon that made sense.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| The comment was more like: "I don't understand why they need
| 600 developers, but I'd like to learn. Anyone know what
| they're doing?"
| umanwizard wrote:
| The OP didn't claim they thought 600 was unreasonable. A
| charitable reading of their post is they were genuinely
| curious _why_ it's reasonable.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| "Charitable interpretation" it seems like that is what's
| missing from the internet (and world) today. Extreme
| perspectives and no interpersonal relationships == not
| trust, no willingness to learn.
| kayo_20211030 wrote:
| Nope, I have no sense of how it breaks out. But, it's a pretty
| good site w.r.t. technology/delivery/robustness, so 600 doesn't
| seem that exorbitant.
| returningfory2 wrote:
| The NYT has awesome interactive web features for things like
| the election tomorrow, which I'm guessing take a lot of
| development work to land. It's much more than a CMS.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| It's a very good CMS, with lots of cool, bespoke features you
| don't typically get, but functionally it is still mostly a
| CMS.
| returningfory2 wrote:
| No it's not.
|
| Just open this (gift) article: https://www.nytimes.com/inte
| ractive/2024/01/09/opinion/immig...
|
| There was clearly a non-trivial amount of frontend
| development work necessary to build the dynamic
| visualization in this article. This has nothing to do with
| CMS's. The work has nothing to do with persisting data
| anywhere. It has nothing to do with backend anything. It's
| all frontend work to get a visualization in a browser.
| Absolutely nothing do with CMS's.
| raybb wrote:
| I'm almost certain that 600 software developers is wrong and
| that it's actually 600 people in the whole union (software
| developers, data analysts, designers, and product managers).
|
| When I was at NYT in 2021 there were like ~300 software
| developers. Which still seems like a lot but they have legacy
| COBOL (converted to java) systems to interact with the ancient
| printing press technologies around the world, a payments team
| instead of stripe, a lot of folks working on different apps (
| cooking, audio, games, etc), data scientists working on the
| algorithms, an in house CMS with a lot of steps, probably
| tooling for all their podcast work, software for the customer
| support agents when people have issues, and the list goes on.
| bsimpson wrote:
| They've also been pioneers in datavis. Mike Bostock
| (D3/Observable) had a long stint there, and I think Rich
| Harris (Svelte/Rollup) still is.
| EMIRELADERO wrote:
| > Which still seems like a lot but they have legacy COBOL
| (converted to java)
|
| I'm still trying to figure out how to start up Aristo (ex-
| CIS) correctly. What a messy codebase...
| purple_ferret wrote:
| > I would never have guessed so many full-time employees were
| necessary to maintain a CMS.
|
| Well they also run Cooking and Games, which has gotten pretty
| big. I imagine they have some hand in audio too.
|
| They run their own services, such as messaging and ad delivery,
| too.
|
| IIRC, they basically developed things like D3 and Backbone back
| in the day (or paid the maintainers)
| manvillej wrote:
| I have a colleague in tech over there on the product side. They
| do a ton of very interesting work: https://open.nytimes.com/
|
| They have a much higher bar for quality and boutique solutions
| than almost any organizations.
| screye wrote:
| Only in tech do people get so aggravated by employee count.
|
| Legacy companies have armies of consultants building pretty
| decks with little end-product to show for it. Never questioned.
| Every industry has a certain amount of slack built in. Large
| institutions (big Hollywood, govt, defense, medical services)
| have oodles of bureaucracy. Tech looks like a paradise in
| comparison. Yes, tech workers should seek to be more efficient.
| But, when viewed from comparative lens, tech is in the top tier
| of efficient industries.
|
| Personally, I am not sold on tech unions. But, tech workers
| have uniquely low leverage within their profession. Tech lacks
| paid overtime or paid on-calls. Engineers are routinely
| expected to work evenings for meetings with off-shore teams.
| There is limited mobility because unlike doctors or lawyers/
| engineers/ hard-tech engineers.... SWEs are frequently managed
| by non-SWEs. The manner in which remote work was revoked is a
| canary for the lack of lobbying power among tech workers.
|
| Yes, tech workers are paid upper-middle class wages. But, the
| quality of life afforded by the profession has gone for a
| plunge since the 2022 layoffs. Companies have revoked all the
| pros of covid (flexible & remote work replaced with mandatory
| in office days and 9-5 hours). But, they've kept all the
| negatives of covid (work never ends, notification on all
| devices, global teams, smaller offices, fewer in-office perks).
| It's like companies want to have their cake and eat it too.
|
| To that end, I empathize with any tech coalition that wants to
| lobby for better 'worker rights'. Union strikes may be a
| suboptimal way of doing this. But, it's better than nothing.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| well they probably need at least 20 for wordle
| dctoedt wrote:
| The timing isn't going to win a lot of friends -- there's a
| public interest involved here, as journos keep telling us.
| downrightmike wrote:
| NYT has had two years to make a contract and they dragged their
| feet. Good on the union for hitting them where it hurts.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Have devs at any of the large tech companies ever tried to
| unionize? If not, why not?
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Many big tech companies have _a_ software union, but despite
| substantial efforts invested from CWA none have gotten close to
| majority support across a whole company. Microsoft has some
| majority unions in specific segments of their gaming org.
| miltonlost wrote:
| Grindr devs did ("large"). Announced intention to unionize in
| July of 2023. In August 2023, the gay republican CEO then made
| a RTO requirement to force all of engineering to Chicago, after
| hiring everyone as remote first for years. But designers and
| project managers would be forced to move to LA.
|
| The union filed an unfair labor practice with the NLRB, but
| that process has dragged for over a year, even after the union
| successfully won their vote AFTER the purge.
|
| Why don't workers unionize? Because management can fire them
| right away with repurcussions only after years, if that, and
| even then, the repurcussions aren't to the CEO who broke the
| law. Breaking labor laws should put executives in prison, but
| noooo, instead penalties are paid by the company and the CEO's
| move to another company to do the same illegal shit.
|
| The government agencies must move faster if they want to
| protect workers. Delays only help management, who still get
| salaries throughout and are never actually punished or face any
| negative consequences.
|
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3mq4y/grindr-unlawfully-pur...
|
| https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/grindr-workers-united-cw...
| miltonlost wrote:
| Update from today that the NLRB found that a RTO mandate to
| thwart a union is illegal:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-04/grindr-
| rt...
| Manuel_D wrote:
| I think Boeing developers might be part of their engineers
| union.
|
| Tech companies tend not to unionize, because most developers
| don't see net gain to be had from unionizing. Most unions end
| up serving the interest of the union instead of the company,
| and enact things like seniority based pay and promotion.
| There's just too much incentive to cater towards interest of
| mediocre employees in a union model.
|
| Another big factor in software development is that the jobs are
| comfortable and pay very well. So lots of people would happily
| apply to the job. IIRC, it's something like a 40:1 ratio of
| applicants to offers at big tech companies.
| purple_ferret wrote:
| The strength of a union is have a large organization with funds
| for lawyers and such.
|
| Most of those organizations (like the UAW) don't focus on
| technology positions, so software people are left out in a
| lurch a bit.
|
| NYTimes has savvy, vocal people in it that have someone
| overcome this.
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| I get that this is an american comment. But usually you are
| focused on each trades. In Sweden we have an "office worker"
| union.
|
| - https://www.unionen.se/in-english/this-is-unionen
|
| You can be in finance, hr, it, dev, engineering etc. Because we
| all want transparency, good salary, protection, 40h work weeks,
| overtime etc.
|
| A union is not going to be involved in specifics like if we use
| Linux or Microsoft, so why does it need to be tech focused?
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Because software development is a "trade" and like you said
| most unions are build around trades. "Office worker" is not a
| trade/profession.
| MajimasEyepatch wrote:
| Media organizations like the New York Times have had unions for
| a long time. The Times Tech Guild is part of the New York Times
| Guild, which is part of the NewsGuild of New York, an umbrella
| organization for a lot of media unions in New York.
|
| There is no tradition of unionization in most tech companies,
| and tech employees are paid very well and have usually had an
| easy time moving between companies. If you're unhappy with
| something, you can probably solve that as an individual without
| needing collective bargaining.
|
| Tech workers at a company that's already unionized would be
| more likely to unionize in part because their colleagues are
| unionized, so they look around and say, "Hey, how come I'm not
| a part of that?" And the unions themselves can evangelize
| unions and recruit tech workers to unionize, which is good for
| the union because it gives them more resources and more
| bargaining partner. It's much harder for a union to come into a
| non-unionized workplace and start a movement from scratch,
| especially with a bunch of people who make six figures.
|
| There's also a libertarian streak to Silicon Valley and the
| tech industry more broadly. This makes startup culture vibrant
| but at the expense of more individualism and less collectivism.
|
| It's no coincidence that one of the few areas of tech to have
| seen a meaningful unionization push in recent years is gaming.
| Workers in gaming are in much more volatile positions, since
| it's a hit-driven business with long, expensive development
| cycles. And there's a constant stream of young, idealistic
| people who have dreamed of working in games their whole life
| and are willing to take on terrible working conditions and low
| pay to live that dream, at least for a while. There's also a
| lot of roles like art, music, and game design that are hard to
| parlay into other industries, whereas a software engineer or
| product manager who works can move between industries with
| relative ease. So there's an incentive for people in those
| roles to fix the companies and industries where they are
| instead of just moving on.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Because there are a half billion people in India ready and
| willing to take that job.
| marcinzm wrote:
| Historically big tech provided amazing compensation and
| benefits compared to everyone except some finance companies.
| Why unionize and potentially risk a very good thing?
|
| For context, the NY Times does not provide amazing compensation
| or benefits.
| TylerE wrote:
| Maybe in the bay area. My experience elsewhere is that both
| are sliding much more towards white collar norms. As more and
| more people fall under the "tech" umbrella I expect those
| trends to accelerate.
| advisedwang wrote:
| Google workers created a union (Alphabet Workers Union).
| However for the most part it is a non-contract union (aka
| solidarity union or minority union) which means that for now it
| isn't attempting to get a majority vote of the workforce, which
| is the process to get formal union recognition and start
| bargaining for a contract. Instead they are pooling resources
| and using collective action without that. There are a few small
| units of workers that have run and won elections though (all
| contractors I think).
|
| In the 90s there was also a minority union of field engineers
| at NCR Corporation.
|
| Right now there is a union at blizard.
| swed420 wrote:
| Bandcamp was a recent one:
|
| https://www.thenation.com/article/society/bandcamp-union-mus...
| cp9 wrote:
| hell yeah when we fight we win
| jayemar wrote:
| Also covered on The Verge:
| https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/4/24287600/new-york-times-t...
| ponector wrote:
| I totally support their demand for remote work. NY Times should
| hire more remote! They could save a lot by hiring offshore
| without hassle of providing benefits or fighting unions.
| wg0 wrote:
| Can't get this fetish with on premise work when the code you
| write is on your machine, the systems you deploy to are in a
| data centre you don't know the exact location of.
|
| If Linux kernel can be developed remotely spanning over several
| architectures and huge number of mission critical subsystems,
| surely your systems having blog posts, comments and such can
| work as well and if not, you have failed to articulate exactly
| what needs to be done and by when and under what constraints.
| Xelynega wrote:
| But the managers don't feel as important at the end of the
| day.
|
| Didn't you think about them?
| ewhanley wrote:
| If this was such an easy proposition and there was actually
| arbitrage available, why haven't they already done it. If the
| market is to be believed, this would only be a temporary boost
| if it were even achievable. Demand goes up for offshore
| workers, their prices start to rise, and the delta closes.
| FredPret wrote:
| This has happened with several offshore manufacturing
| destinations already.
|
| These formerly poor countries become middle class and then
| manufacturing has to shift to one of remaining poor
| countries.
| FredPret wrote:
| Have you ever done knowledge work with offshore contributors?
|
| It's challenging to say the least. Even when working between
| first-world countries speaking English, there's a host of
| serious problems. Cultural differences; different expectations;
| time zone differences.
| sonthonax wrote:
| The New York Times is a glorified blogging platform. Not to
| long ago it was a Wordpress site.
|
| I'm fully aware of how jaring it is for the median HN reader
| to hear this, but maintenance of a news website isn't the
| kind of skilled labour that commands a 250k a year paycheck
| anymore.
| FredPret wrote:
| Perhaps but they do serve their blog at scale, including
| video and interactive widgets. They're the most popular of
| the news blogs.
|
| It's not rocket engineering but it's not nothing.
| ponector wrote:
| Yes, I did. For more han a decade. With same failure rates as
| with in-office teams.
|
| With 100k annual budget you can hire a contractor with good
| English who will be working in your timezone.
|
| Regarding cultural difference - does everyone in your office
| has the same culture? No indian-born developers? No asian-
| born?
| ramesh31 wrote:
| The time to do this was 10 years ago. Best of luck. Half of these
| jobs won't exist in a couple years.
| mym1990 wrote:
| 10 years ago was a very different time...
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >10 years ago was a very different time...
|
| Indeed. When tech workers actually had some bargaining power.
| The rise of remote work, AI, and the flooding of the industry
| with bootcamp and CS grads has changed everything. We'll
| probably look back at the last 20 years as a golden age akin
| to the postwar manufacturing boom in the US, where a single
| person could reasonably provide for a family.
| wiseowise wrote:
| 10 years ago it was "y'all will be replaced with cheap
| South Asian developers", time is a flat circle.
| cush wrote:
| Doing this the day before the election is savage
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Doing this the day before the election is savage_
|
| Wirecutter (also a Times property) went on strike during Black
| Friday.
|
| Unions can be pretty savage.
|
| Like the one in Chicago that was striking at a hotel, but
| couldn't get any traction, so for weeks took to blaring
| bullhorns and sirens _outside a children 's hospital at 2am_ to
| put pressure on the city to put pressure on the hotel.
|
| In the end, the hotel closed and the people who tortured the
| sick children ended up losing their jobs.
| tptacek wrote:
| If you're talking about the Cambria, part of the issue there
| was that both the hotel and the hospital apparently refused
| to sign complaints. The length of the strike (it went on for
| almost a year) was a more salient issue than the hours, and a
| lot of the news coverage was driven by irritable neighbors.
| Either way: the City Council passed a noise-free zone
| ordinance as a result, and designated Lurie first.
| cush wrote:
| "Like the ... people who tortured the sick children"
|
| I'm not entirely convinced these two situations are even
| remotely alike. But yeah, by savage I didn't mean unjustified
| or evil or anything negative.
| tedivm wrote:
| They've had two years to negotiate a contract, so the union
| needs to do something to put pressure on them to actually do
| it.
| randerson wrote:
| If NYT goes down on election day I will cancel my subscription.
| I don't care whether its because of management being
| unreasonable or employees being unreasonable. Either way, it
| shows systemic disrespect to their customers.
| legitster wrote:
| > The two sides negotiated until late Sunday. The sticking points
| in recent days were over whether they could get a "just cause"
| provision in their contract, which means workers can be
| terminated only for misconduct or another such reason; pay
| increases and pay equity; and return-to-office policies.
|
| This seems like a LOT of issues that still need to be hammered
| out. It would be one thing if they were disagreeing about a
| number, but it sounds like the terms keep changing and nobody
| agrees on the nature of the work itself. It's not even clear that
| there's a preliminary contract ready for the NYTimes to sign.
|
| Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to pull.
| But if this is just attention seeking without a serious contract,
| it seems egregiously _risky_ on behalf of the union members too:
| there 's not a clear button the Times can push on behalf of the
| union to end the strike immediately. The Times would either have
| to sign a blank check to the union now, or the union would have
| to agree to an IOU in exchange for a bunch of temporary
| concessions.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| What's crappy about the union striking when they have leverage?
| Should they have waited until the strike would apply less
| pressure to their employer?
| foota wrote:
| Because waiting for the time when you can apply the most
| leverage is a shitty thing to do? How would you feel if your
| house was on fire and the fire fighters went on strike only
| then to demand they be given bounties?
|
| They had a contract, waiting for the time when the work they
| do is absolutely critical is antisocial behavior. Society is
| built on people honoring their commitments.
| rapind wrote:
| > How would you feel if your house was on fire and the fire
| fighters went on strike only then to demand they be given
| bounties?
|
| What a terrible analogy promoting a ridiculous narrative.
|
| A better analogy is if it's the mayors house on fire, it
| was predetermined when exactly the mayors house would catch
| fire, the mayor had been warned well in advance of his
| house catching fire that the firefighters would like to
| negotiate their contract, and had in fact been involved in
| negotiations for years already. Not quite the same zing to
| it though...
| foota wrote:
| If they didn't like their contract, the responsible thing
| to do would have been to go on strike earlier or quit.
| Waiting till the moment of maximal pain is just spiteful
| and done in bad faith.
|
| Ultimately, labor unions exist to extract additional
| compensation from employers. Imo in cases where the
| employer can afford it and the employees in question are
| being unfairly treated, I think it's reasonable for them
| to quit or strike in good faith, but I don't think many
| of those things are true here.
|
| Newspapers are barely surviving these days. These people
| took jobs at the nytimes knowing they wouldn't make big
| tech salaries, and most companies have ended WFH
| policies. If they can force the NYTimes to give them
| concessions by holding them hostage during one of the
| most contentious moments in US history, I won't admire
| them one bit.
|
| Lastly, thanks for drawing that better comparison. It
| still wouldn't be right for the firefighters to let
| someone's house burn down in that case.
| legitster wrote:
| 1: If a union strikes when it has _too_ much leverage, there
| 's a risk there as well at overplaying the hand. If the Times
| does just fine during the election, then the union helps make
| the case their members are overrated. If the Times crashes
| and burns during the election, they might make the value of
| the contract weaker.
|
| 2: In an election where trust and reliability of independent
| media are really being called into question, something like
| this could have outsized negative impact. There's potentially
| a lot of damage to innocent third parties, including smaller
| syndication partners.
| drawkward wrote:
| 1: i suppose we will have to wait and see whether it was a
| crappy or smart move.
|
| 2: i suspect that it is not the NYT readers who are
| fretting about media credibility. By definition, they
| already believe in the system.
| itake wrote:
| Does SWE striking even mean anything to a company? If
| factory workers don't show up, no products are made. If a
| SWE doesn't show up, the website is just fine (see elon
| buys twitter).
|
| SWE impact is measured in quarters or years, especially at
| a big company that doesn't have public deadlines for
| project delivery.
| TylerE wrote:
| The busiest news day of the year is tomorrow. You don't
| think NYTimes.com not being up to announce the winner
| isn't a problem?
| pydry wrote:
| >If a union strikes when it has too much leverage, there's
| a risk there as well at overplaying the hand.
|
| You might need to take some lessons in negotiating.
| janalsncm wrote:
| If you don't have a fire department and your house catches
| on fire, it is an obvious demonstration of their value.
| Likewise, if NYT goes down tomorrow or they don't have
| content to drive traffic, it shows management they can't
| mess around. The best case scenario for management is a dip
| in traffic but no major issues.
|
| Also, it takes two to tango. For any of the negative
| outcomes you mention, NYT management is equally to blame.
| Why is it the union's responsibility to acquiesce to
| whatever terms to maintain trust and reliability?
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| > Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to
| pull.
|
| That's leverage. Striking during a time when the business
| doesn't care is a dumb move.
| bloomingkales wrote:
| Let me correct you, this will be election _month_ at minimum.
|
| The NYT kind of brings this kind of heat on itself because it
| has shifted from being just the paper of record over to an
| institution to the current definition of progressivism. You
| can only really do this union kinda stuff against self-
| important institutions. Which developer is ever going to
| attempt this on Accenture? They are straight up and honest
| about their business, which is they are trying to rake
| profits from connecting developers with companies - whatever
| it takes, whoever, from wherever, at whatever price is
| profitable.
|
| The Times adorned itself as something _more_ than a business,
| a _special_ kind of business, a business that fights for
| _something_. So there you go, live up to it I guess.
|
| Here is some of the content that the NYTimes focuses on:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/21/opinion/starbucks-
| union-s...
| drawkward wrote:
| > the current definition of progressivism
|
| It's a fairly pro-business paper, certainly not very
| critical of Israel, and you appear to have completely
| missed all of its somewhat trans-skeptical reporting and
| opinion. (The latter pervasive enough to rankle many of its
| own employees about the tone and tenor of NYT coverage of
| trans issues.)
| bloomingkales wrote:
| I want to believe you, but my hunch is your reply is
| similar to someone suggesting "Well, you see, you forgot
| all the pro liberal coverage that Fox News has been doing
| all year".
|
| Does NYT not have a reputation or am I truly out of touch
| here? I went through some of their podcasts recently and
| it's all quite one-sided, for example.
| drawkward wrote:
| I think the paper is generally lib-left, but not
| necessarily progressive-left. I also see NPR as pretty
| centrist reporting.
| rapind wrote:
| It depends where you're coming from. Some (many now?) see
| Dick Cheney as a progressive liberal liar, and many on
| the left see him as a right-wing devil incarnate.
| TylerE wrote:
| Who exactly is calling _Dick Cheyney_ a progressive?
| That's not the same thing as refusing to endorse Trump,
| btw.
| immibis wrote:
| The Overton window has truly shifted that far right.
| We're in trouble.
| briandear wrote:
| NPR and NY Times are almost identically left-biased, with
| NPR being slightly more so.
|
| https://www.allsides.com/news-source/npr-editorial
|
| https://www.allsides.com/news-source/new-york-times
| metabagel wrote:
| I think it's a mistake to judge the NYT by their
| podcasts. I canceled my subscription when they reported
| on the concessions the UAW had won from automakers mostly
| in terms of how it might affect the bottom line of the
| companies, and with little to no mention of the effect on
| the workers and their families.
| hosh wrote:
| I was very disappointed with NYT's coverage of the 2020
| elections, and it has been difficult for me to take their
| reporting seriously since then. That they had their own
| workers striking is not a good look, yet unsurprising to
| me at this point. Just my opinion, I don't know if this
| counts as reputation.
|
| (NPR was even more disappointing because they positioned
| themselves as centrist; APM's Marketplace was closer
| centrist that than NPR).
| SalmonSnarker wrote:
| > am I truly out of touch here?
|
| Yes, you are absolutely out of touch. drawkward gave you
| three incredibly specific examples but you just kept on
| sticking with your hunch.
|
| A paper that is the "epitome of progressivism" probably
| isn't going to have multiple conservative opinion
| columnists heavily featured and isn't going to have
| recurring problems with fawning interviews of white
| supremacists over barbecue.
|
| I suppose if you're any further than center-right, a
| paper that is narrowly center-left is going to appear to
| be the "epitome of progressivism", but many years of
| critique would probably suggest otherwise. politely, i
| don't think this would be something you'd get tripped up
| on if you'd paid attention for a few years longer than a
| singular skim of the podcasts recently.
| avazhi wrote:
| > It's a fairly pro-business paper, certainly not very
| critical of Israel
|
| Sorry, are we both talking about the New York Times in
| 2024 here? Not a day goes by that there isn't an article
| crying about Palestinians and bashing Israel - there's
| one right now, just scroll down to the section just above
| sports.
|
| Calling it the preeminent progressive institution in
| America media today is axiomatic.
| drawkward wrote:
| I'm sorry, when did the NYT call Isreal's behavior
| genocidal? I must have missed it.
|
| Any objective observer would call Israel's behavior
| abhorrent wrt Gaza. In fact, it seems like the majority
| of the planet is doing that, if the UN is representative.
| metabagel wrote:
| Is it crying about Palestinians or just reporting the
| news? Can you tell the difference?
| drawkward wrote:
| >Calling it the preeminent progressive institution in
| America media today is axiomatic.
|
| ...among certain not-unbiased segments of the population.
| briandear wrote:
| Is supporting Hamas a progressive position? Hard for me
| to keep track these days.
| drawkward wrote:
| Please, i beg you, show me a _single instance_ of NYT
| support for Hamas.
| immibis wrote:
| The NYT is most definitely pro-Israel - so much that
| after October 7, it made up[1] a story of mass rape[2] to
| justify the attacks on Gaza. Just because it's not as
| pro-Israel as you doesn't mean it's not pro-Israel.
|
| [1] https://theintercept.com/2024/02/28/new-york-times-
| anat-schw...
|
| [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/world/middleeast/o
| ct-7-at...
|
| This comment will be deleted by moderators, though, just
| like every other comment which points this out. Yet no
| moderator has ever mentioned why they are doing that.
| It's factual and relevant to the discussion.
| abletonlive wrote:
| I like the implication that being "trans-skeptical" is
| "non-progressive" and therefore to be a progressive you
| have to buy into the ideology without questioning
| anything. That does align with my current views of where
| progressive ideology is headed
| drawkward wrote:
| I think the bulk of the pro-trans movement would consider
| themselves progressive. I think that the bulk of
| progressives would consider themselves pro-trans.
|
| I don't consider myself a progressive for just this
| reason. I would be considered a TERF by the trans
| community, not because I think trans people don't exist
| or arent worth of love, employment, and respect, but
| rather because there are some hot issues (bathroom
| access, sports access, how to handle children permanently
| transitioning, replacing cisgendered terminology in
| medical textbooks) that I believe merit more study or
| nuanced approaches.
|
| At the end of the day, it comes down to the question of
| who has the right to define what labels, and I think most
| progressives would not call you a progressive if you
| don't 100% accept trans rights. Of course, this demands
| lockstep ideological behavior, which is rarely a good
| thing for long. Could you be progressive on some issues
| and not others? Certainly! But which mix defines you as
| "progressive" or not is not up to me.
| rightbyte wrote:
| > [...] I would be considered a TERF [...]
|
| I had to look that up. I'm I out of touch with the times
| by not knowing such acronyms? I am standing here at the
| station minding my business and Overton Express is
| passing by at 60 mph. "TERF" seem to describe most
| progressives. But I think I lag the avant guard conscious
| by 10 years of something.
|
| But anyhow, I would say NYT is very much not left nor
| progressive. Maybe on some tangential culture issues. It
| is a centre corporate newspaper.
| immibis wrote:
| "skeptical" is in most cases just a euphemism for
| "opposed".
| Nimitz14 wrote:
| This is a controversial statement. To pretend that the
| NYT has not changed is dishonest:
| https://www.economist.com/1843/2023/12/14/when-the-new-
| york-...
| drawkward wrote:
| The NYT literally published an Op-Ed in which an American
| senator called for sending american troops to quell BLM
| protests.
|
| So progressive!
| bell-cot wrote:
| > The Times adorned itself as something _more_...
|
| +/- your buy-in on that image. Pete's Pizza Parlor also
| adorns itself - as being on a _mission_ to serve up piping
| hot pizza pies.
| acdha wrote:
| > The NYT kind of brings this kind of heat on itself
| because it has shifted from being just the paper of record
| over to an institution to the current definition of
| progressivism.
|
| This sounds like how American conservatives describe it
| rather than how most readers or actual progressives would -
| the latter having significant misgivings about how it
| covered Iraq, Occupy Wall Street, the 2016 election
| coverage of things like the email hacks and FBI
| investigations relative to their actual substance, the tone
| of their coverage and editorials about transgender issues,
| etc.
|
| The best way I've found to describe the NYT is as
| representing the east coast establishment. The issues which
| earned them attacks as liberal were things like favorably
| covering gay rights, which affects those elites (even rich
| sons of influential families can be born gay so everyone
| knows someone who benefits from that), but they tend to be
| more conservative on things like workers rights or tax
| issues which don't affect or may even threaten their
| affluent readers. Climate change affects everyone but their
| opinion pieces are going to be things like "buy an
| induction stove" or "vacation in Nepal before the snow
| melts and buy some carbon offsets" rather than "stop flying
| and eat less beef" because their target reader wants to do
| the former and not the latter.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| You are comically uninformed. If the NYT were even remotely
| progressive, they'd have been consistently flogging the
| living shit out of Donald Trump and his idiotic, dementia-
| driven behavior behind a podium for months now instead of
| pretending like we should accept it as normal while
| excoriating Harris for behaving like a mainstream political
| candidate.
| briandear wrote:
| Dementia driven? We can certainly disagree on policy
| objectives, but claiming Trump has dementia is absolute
| nonsense. Did you watch the Rogan interview? Regardless
| of one's views on his politics, there is not even a
| remote hint of dementia.
| TylerE wrote:
| Have you? Just last not he was confused about what *state
| he was in. A week ago he spent 40 minutes kn stage doing
| nothing as music played until his handlers yanked him.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yeah the media have been salivating for this week for months
| now. Exactly why I'm not planning to read or watch any news
| this week.
|
| I'll vote tomorrow. That's what I can do. All the rest of it
| is out of my hands and I'm not going to spend any of my time
| or mental energy engaging in the manufactured drama sure to
| come.
|
| Like my barber said at my last haircut: the only sure thing
| about this election is that an idiot will be our next
| president.
| metabagel wrote:
| Not necessarily. Trump might not win.
|
| It boggles my mind at how proud people are to refuse to
| draw a distinction between two completely different
| candidates. One has demonstrated competence and public
| service, while the other has demonstrated incompetence and
| chronic self-dealing.
|
| Refusing to draw a distinction is moral cowardice.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I agree they are completely different. I don't think
| either are remotely qualified. I have been struggling
| with whether I'll vote for president at all. I cannot in
| good conscience endorse either candidate, on the other
| hand those are the choices I have. I guess I could do a
| symbolic write-in. I have never been less motivated for a
| presidential election in my life.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| _Exactly why I 'm not planning to read or watch any news
| this week._
|
| I see we share the same strategy. My new policy is that I
| shut the news off once the polls open on election day and
| don't turn it back on until the following morning. Over the
| course of my life, I'll accrue enough saved hours to have
| achieved something minor, yet meaningful.
| JohnBrookz wrote:
| That's the perfect time to go on strike.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| > Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to
| pull.
|
| It's smart. The one week where americans manage pull their head
| out of their ass is a good time to move.
| seizethecheese wrote:
| Why not both smart and crappy?
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| TBH, i don't see the crappy angle at all. I think the
| country will be just fine without its favored boutique-
| news-coverage-election-needle-software. Besides, the actual
| coverage isn't being effected at all.
|
| EDIT: spelling
| wholinator2 wrote:
| I don't know, probably the lowest common denominator is
| paying more attention but most everyone i know is desperately
| trying to shove their heads anywhere that is quiet and calm.
| The fervor and anger with which all common media explodes
| during election month is unbearable.
| briandear wrote:
| Most of us aren't paying attention to The NY Times. If they
| aren't there, nobody will notice.
| krainboltgreene wrote:
| It seems extremely bad taste for you to comment on the
| situation like this with such little insight. Like do you even
| have any union negotiation experience? Monday morning
| quarterbacking is always so tacky.
| legitster wrote:
| > Like do you even have any union negotiation experience?
|
| I spent 3 years working for a professional union negotiator.
| I don't know everything, but I feel like I have a bit more
| insight into how the sausage gets made.
| krainboltgreene wrote:
| Man I sincerely doubt that because I would never ever feel
| comfortable commenting like that. I looked through your
| post history for union references and it seems like you're
| not all that onboard with american unionization practices.
| I guess I'm forced to believe you due to anonymity though.
| stickfigure wrote:
| > workers can be terminated only for misconduct or another such
| reason
|
| This is such a weird request for technology workers. You _want_
| to work with low-performing coworkers?
| drawkward wrote:
| Seems like a hiring problem, not a firing problem.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| I have lots of experience hiring tech people. Most of the
| time they turn out to be just as good as we thought they
| would be. But sometimes they don't. It would be terrible if
| it was impossible for us to let those people go.
| drawkward wrote:
| It would be terrible for businesses to fire people
| arbitrarily. I'd rather give more rights to individuals
| than to businesses, because I am biased in an anti-
| business way: businesses arent bounded by human lifespans
| or biological constraints, get preferential treatment by
| the American legal system, have orders of magnitude more
| money and political power than individuals. It's almost
| like the USA fought a war and chartered individual rights
| in a document over this kind of shit, but never imagined
| businesses would be more encompassing than governments.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| Off-shoring is already very prevalent in US tech work. So
| there certainly needs to be a balance in workers rights
| and business interest if those jobs are going to stay
| domestic. In general I agree with your perspective. But
| there is a harsh alternative reality that we're going to
| continue to face in the tech workforce.
| 9x39 wrote:
| Would it be terrible if employees could fire their
| employers arbitrarily?
|
| Both parties have freedom in this arrangement, but we can
| find examples of both employees and employers with weak
| negotiating positions. I don't think that invalidates the
| benefits of freedoms of association.
|
| To your point about business being bound by constraints,
| they absolutely are bound by the niche they operate in.
| As markets change, world events unfold, competitors
| appear, decisions are made, companies can struggle and
| fail, yet are typically unable to pivot.
|
| Consider a company that makes ICE cars that can't follow
| the market into making EVs. Or a company that has never
| had competition might be in the stranglehold of "this is
| the way we've always done it" when a fierce competitor
| emerges, and won't adapt.
|
| True, most employees typically don't have equity (so they
| don't share in all the upside), but they also aren't
| married to the company when it looks like a supertanker
| headed for an inevitable collision with a bridge (getting
| wiped out on the downside).
| drawkward wrote:
| >Would it be terrible if employees could fire their
| employers arbitrarily?
|
| Yes.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _It would be terrible if it was impossible for us to let
| those people go._
|
| About half the people on this thread seem to be
| misreading that sentence.
|
| It's very clear that "just cause" includes cases of low
| performance. So no, it's not about making it impossible
| to fire these people.
| mediaman wrote:
| Hiring consistently high performing employees is not a
| solved problem.
|
| Making it hard to fire low performers results in low
| performing teams, and there are no reliable solutions to
| this.
| drawkward wrote:
| One wonders if it is not solved simply because of at will
| employlemt? Almost like firms are lazy, and unwilling to
| go beyond the bare minumum required by law.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| There's nothing stopping someone from performing well at
| interviews then stop performing once they get hired and
| have the job secured.
| drawkward wrote:
| Moral obligations, a sense of pride in ones work, ethical
| worldview...thats just off the top of my head.
|
| It seems if the problem you allege were true at scale,
| the entire labor force is sitting around doing nothing.
|
| Are you really claiming that the only reason all (tech)
| employees do their job is just to avoid firing? How do
| you operate in a zero-trust life?
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| I never said the things you claim.
| kjksf wrote:
| If you ever went through interview loop at Google or a
| similar company, I doubt you would call those companies
| "lazy" wrt. hiring.
|
| An interview is at least 4 people, each grilling you for
| an hour, asking hard questions.
|
| Their hiring bar is high and they optimize for avoiding
| bad hires (which of course is pissing off the commenters
| who want to be hired and therefore would prefer lower
| hiring standard).
|
| In Europe they make it harder to fire people and guess
| what happened?
|
| First, companies have probatory period (2-6 months,
| depending on the country) where you're hired but can be
| fired at will. This is to minimize chances of being stuck
| with a poor performer.
|
| Second, EU economy is about the size of US and China but
| software industry (and the tax / employment riches
| associated with it) is largely in US Chine. Might be a
| coincidence but I think there's causality between over-
| regulation and stagnation of the economy.
| drawkward wrote:
| I wonder if there is causality between "over"-regulation
| and life expectancy and quality of life too.
|
| What good is a growing economy when your country's people
| are living shorter, unhappier lives?
| umanwizard wrote:
| The size of the economy very directly impacts people's
| quality of life.
| drawkward wrote:
| I agree, but not necessarily at fostering happiness!
|
| Look at the countries that are generally regarded as
| happiest: are their economies the biggest?
| umanwizard wrote:
| > Look at the countries that are generally regarded as
| happiest: are their economies the biggest?
|
| Assuming when you say "biggest" you mean per capita...
| yes. Obviously it's not the only factor, but generally I
| think it's generally accepted that people in rich
| countries are better off than people in poor countries.
| rincebrain wrote:
| There's also the confounding factor that software
| engineers, historically, were more in demand as a
| baseline, so in an environment where you think you can
| get a job if you're fired, people optimize more for
| higher risk/higher reward plays, while having job
| security improvements much more heavily benefits
| industries where you're seen as more disposable.
|
| With the endless seas of SWE layoffs, we'll see if that
| behavior continues.
| umanwizard wrote:
| > One wonders if it is not solved simply because of at
| will employlemt?
|
| It's also not a solved problem in countries where at-will
| employment is not the norm.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| Who your boss says is "low-performing" may not match your own
| experience of who is "low-performing", and may include e.g.
| people who the boss doesn't personally like, or indeed may
| include you yourself.
| lucianbr wrote:
| As if only low-performing coworkers would be terminated.
|
| The total freedom of the company to terminate anyone any time
| for any reason or no reason is extreme, and now we are
| pivoting to the other extreme. Funny how that happens.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| "Just cause" provisions are about an inch away from
| arbitrary termination, they are hardly "the other extreme."
| lucianbr wrote:
| That's really nice if that is the case.
|
| My understanding from the comments was that this prevents
| people who don't do their job from being fired, as long
| as they don't set fire to the servers or something. If I
| misunderstood, then the union is being nicer than they
| have to.
| drawkward wrote:
| In my experience, the commenters here, on a forum for SV
| startups, are _overwhelmingly_ biased in favor of
| business.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Why wouldn't it be? Businesses doing pro-business things
| are the main reason well paying jobs exist. And people
| love well paying jobs rather than poor paying jobs.
| drawkward wrote:
| I am making no claim about what the comment bias _should_
| be here on HN. I am merely reporting it to the parent
| comment.
| matsemann wrote:
| That's a very loaded way of putting it.
| eloisant wrote:
| Speaking from a country where workers are very well
| protected, nothing really prevents anyone from being
| fired. It's just more expensive.
|
| A court never reinstates anyone to their job, the company
| just needs to pay damages to the former employee.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| In the US you can be reinstated, it's not actually that
| uncommon of an outcome.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| My own experience working in a white-collar union with a
| just cause provision is that the process is much more
| cumbersome and time consuming, and includes some off-
| ramps, but it is certainly possible to fire and or punish
| low performers. The more concretely "low performance" can
| be measured, the quicker and easier, but we're still
| talking months or years.
| kergonath wrote:
| > My understanding from the comments
|
| That is your problem right there. You cannot trust
| comments to give you an accurate idea of what actually
| happened. The linked source is marginally better (but
| keep in mind that it is close to one side of the story,
| even though it is more independent than some people here
| seem to believe).
| csallen wrote:
| Why is that extreme? If you own a company, why shouldn't
| you be able to fire someone at any time? If you work a job,
| why shouldn't you be able to quit at any time?
|
| I don't think it's great that our society tries to treat
| work like it's family, and jobs like they're some
| guaranteed long-term relationship. It sets people up with
| the wrong expectations.
|
| Your company will lay you off or fire you once they run out
| of money to pay you or reason to keep you on board. That's
| how it works. Just as you will quit your job and take a new
| one if you interview and get a better offer elsewhere.
|
| These are business contracts.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| You're asking why it's bad that your owners can take away
| your livelihood on a whim without any reason?
| gojomo wrote:
| Can an employee quit on a whim without any reason, taking
| vital functions away from the productive team on which
| they served?
| laserlight wrote:
| > taking vital functions away
|
| It's business's responsibility to not depend on a single
| employee. The employee might have been hit by a bus.
| csallen wrote:
| Yes, and it's an employee's responsibility to not depend
| on a single job, and to be prepared for the possibility
| that it might go away. That's the mindset we should be
| teaching people, because it's REALITY.
|
| Plenty of people are aware of this, and they navigate
| this successfully by saving part of their income, by
| maintaining an employable skillset, and by living within
| their means, while working a job.
|
| When you suggest to people that it's their _company 's_
| responsibility to take care of them, to guarantee their
| job into their future, or to look out for their personal
| financial livelihood, that IS NOT REALITY. That's not how
| it works. You're telling people that their own
| responsibilities are someone else's, when that's not in
| fact true. When people mistakenly believe this drivel,
| they're far more likely to take bad risks and make huge
| financial mistakes.
| laserlight wrote:
| Hundred percent. Yet, it's also reality, today, that the
| power asymmetry between individuals and corporations are
| huge. Anybody trying to bootstrap an independent business
| is heavily punished, simply because corporations want you
| to be an employee, just because they can. Unless the
| system balances the power dynamics, it's futile to tell
| people that they shouldn't ask for more rights from
| corporations.
| csallen wrote:
| I literally run the biggest website for people trying to
| bootstrap independent businesses, and I haven't seen
| anyone complain about being heavily punished for trying
| to do so. Founders are the most employable people I know,
| and they typically find it the easiest to go get jobs
| when their businesses fail (although they hate doing so).
| ryandrake wrote:
| Employers employ many people at once. The risk of a bad
| employee is divided by the entire workforce.
|
| Employees, on the other hand, put all their eggs into one
| basket at a time. Many (most?) employers specifically
| forbid moonlighting and working multiple full-time jobs
| at once, so employees are forced to depend on a single
| job at a time. The risk of having a bad employer is
| shouldered 100% by the employee.
|
| It's this power dynamic that justifies different
| standards for employers and employees.
| csallen wrote:
| There is not some guaranteed power dynamic.
|
| Business is not all huge companies with infinite
| redundancy. There are 30M small businesses in America
| that employ 60M people. For the vast majority of
| businesses and teams, losing an employee hurts, and
| employees have lots of leverage. These business owners
| have to do the work to ensure redundancy, to plan their
| budgets and products and systems to ensure they can
| weather inevitable employee turnover. Plenty of
| businesses fail to do this and have to close their doors.
| It happens with regularity.
|
| On the flip side, unemployment is the US is super low.
| It's true that workers can only hold one job at a time,
| but they are not "trapped" at a job. In fact, they have
| more mobility than ever, which also gives them leverage
| to negotiate for higher salaries or to hop jobs. Not to
| mention more gig jobs, remote jobs, and contract jobs
| than ever, even for highly paid positions. Sure, losing a
| job hurts. But the employees who plan for this
| possibility, who maintain skills, maintain savings, and
| live within their means, can find new jobs, just as
| businesses who plan well can weather employee turnover.
|
| It goes both ways.
|
| So if you're in a position where your employer has some
| huge power dynamic hold on you, is that some universal
| truth for all employees resulting from the nature of the
| employer-employee dynamic? I don't think so. I think
| that's the result of poor personal decisions, or bad luck
| at best.
|
| All that said, I'm 100% on board with legal protections
| that set a high standard for employers. We have plenty of
| those already. And I'm 100% on board with government
| stepping in to help take care of people who fall through
| the cracks. For example, I love that COBRA allowed me to
| stay on my previous employer-provided group healthcare
| plan for 18 months(!) after my last job ended.
|
| What I'm against is any cultural or legal change that
| begins to suggest that its employers' responsibility to
| keep their people employed. It's not. Financially, the
| system can't work that way. Employers are not our parents
| or our nannies or our caretakers, and we should not try
| to make them into that.
| bradlys wrote:
| Not everyone has a rich family to fall back on, bud. You
| could say "fall back on the government" but then this is
| how the government would do it. They wouldn't want you to
| fire people for no reason at all. In the same way that
| people are paid a certain wage as an agreement, there are
| other conditions too. This can be part of those
| conditions.
|
| Your claim of: > Yes, and it's an employee's
| responsibility to not depend on a single job, and to be
| prepared for the possibility that it might go away.
| That's the mindset we should be teaching people, because
| it's REALITY.
|
| is capitalist mindset that thinks there's never a chance
| of change. Kinda pathetic for a MIT grad, tbh.
| hildolfr wrote:
| > Kinda pathetic for a MIT grad, tbh.
|
| Personal attacks are shite, especially when they dig into
| someone's background for extra 'bite'.
|
| P.s. what rock have you been living under where you have
| a preconception that all MIT graduates are ethical white
| knights that share all of your own opinions?
|
| It's one of the most varietal student bodies at a school
| that forks people majorly into military programs and
| research labs.. to expect harmonious homogeny regarding
| ethical opinions from the graduates is ridiculous.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| I can't. My employment contract has a three-month notice
| period.
| miltonlost wrote:
| > If you own a company, why shouldn't you be able to fire
| someone at any time?
|
| Because that is bad for the individual worker. We live in
| a society, and society should look out for humans before
| corporations.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| I recommend you travel to LATAM or EMEA, where worker
| protections are much higher. No one gets fired because
| protections are so high. At-will is unheard of [1]. In
| some countries, there's a mandatory X months of salary
| for Y months worked. The regulation of the labor market,
| however, is strict and inflexible [2], and all LATAM
| jurisdictions impose mandatory severance pay for wrongful
| terminations.[2]
|
| What are the results of worker protections mentioned
| above ? Literally no jobs with protections. See for
| yourself. LATAM has an average of ~65% informal
| employment. Take Argentina for example. Close to 50% of
| the labor market are under-the-table "jobs" for this
| reason.[3]. Even more developed countries suffer the
| consequences , such as UK having 24% informal sector [4]
|
| All those governments intended to look out for humans
| before corporations. It didn't work out that way. The
| road to poverty is paved with good intentions.
|
| US dynamism actually creates more jobs as more are
| willing to try new things and experiment.
|
| Yes, you can protect workers, very very well. But only if
| you are OK with a tiny amount of protected workers, and
| let everyone else toil in the informal sector where zero
| protections exist
|
| [1] https://goglobal.com/blog/from-legal-protocols-to-
| cultural-n...
|
| [2] https://www.acc.com/sites/default/files/resources/vl/
| public/...
|
| [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1037216/informal-
| employm...
|
| [4] https://ilostat.ilo.org/topics/informality/
| jorvi wrote:
| I work in the EU, and I'd rather see the American "at-
| will" system, but with a basic income + additional
| financial distress protections.
|
| It is IMO ridiculous that in a lot of EU countries,
| chronic low performance is not just cause for firing.
|
| It makes economical sense to reduce the friction of
| allocating workers where they'll be most productive. It
| just shouldn't destroy those workers' financial security.
| rgblambda wrote:
| I'd argue the main reason low performance employees don't
| get fired is because managers either don't know who the
| low performers are, or don't want to have an unpleasant
| conversation and can choose to put it off indefinitely.
| miltonlost wrote:
| You think LATAM is in poverty because of their worker
| protections? Not the decades of western exploitation of
| their natural resources? Not the decades of American
| interference in their political systems to destabilize
| their government? Sure.
|
| I'd also like to know what the United States informal
| labor rate is, but sadly that [4] link doesn't have it.
| So really, comparing to the UK is pointless without
| knowing what the US is. And if you think the US doesn't
| have informal labor, then I suggest you go to a Home
| Depot parking lot.
|
| oh, and on the UK issue, did you look at the map on the
| link you sent? It says the UK's rate of informal
| employment is 6.5%, not 24%. Either start reading better
| or stop lying.
| asdasdsddd wrote:
| > You think LATAM is in poverty because of their worker
| protections? Not the decades of western exploitation of
| their natural resources? Not the decades of American
| interference in their political systems to destabilize
| their government? Sure.
|
| No, countries regularly go from poverty to wealth
| quickly. It's purely cultural which is upstream from
| policy.
| albumen wrote:
| From your own source: UK's informal employment rate?
| 6.5%, not 24%. Ireland? 1.8%. Germany: 2.5%. Norway: 2%.
| Many EU countries have strong labor protections alongside
| low informality and high employment. While labor
| protections pose challenges, they do not inherently lead
| to high informality or low job creation. Effective policy
| design and enforcement are key to achieving economic
| stability with strong worker rights.
|
| I'm not surprised, on a startup-angled site, that there'd
| be dissatisfaction with not being able to hire and fire
| at will. COVID had employees re-assess what was important
| for them. Tangentially, now we're seeing that shorter
| working weeks results in higher employee productivity and
| satisfaction.[1]
|
| Having job security, when you've taken on long-term
| commitments like a mortgage and raising kids, is
| considered important in many parts of the world. The EU
| isn't SV; for employees that's probably a good thing.
|
| [1]: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/10/surprising-
| benefits-...
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| >>>I'm not surprised, on a startup-angled site, that
| there'd be dissatisfaction with not being able to hire
| and fire at will
|
| Its not just startups. The chickens always come home to
| roost.
|
| Lets go into COVID since it is a wonderful example.
| Employers in Ecuador dealt with minimum wage protections
| well outpacing productivity growth precovid, doubling the
| cost of protections relative to Colombia and 75 percent
| higher than in Peru [1] . Then COVID hit. The central
| government had no choice but to temporarily rescind the
| rules of strict protections under "force majeure". This
| eliminated all severance payments to employees under
| 'force majeure'. [2]
|
| What happened?
|
| A bunch of low performers who had built a decade or more
| in 1 job, got unexpectedly laid off, despite working in
| perfectly operating businesses with no risk of bankruptcy
| (AG, export adjacent etc) Then, with zero marketable
| skills from a decade of non-work, these workers are
| chronically unemployable now. [3]
|
| PS - Regarding the UK number cited, which some people
| felt very strongly about.. I made a mistake and quoted
| the wrong year. I can't edit my comment any longer [4]
|
| [1] https://www.elibrary.imf.org/downloadpdf/journals/002
| /2021/2... see page 11, section 1.
|
| [2] https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-
| monitor/2020-09-21/ecu...
|
| [3] https://www.elibrary.imf.org/downloadpdf/journals/002
| /2021/2... , see page 13, section 6 ("the recovery has
| been very partially among the less educated (persons with
| basic education or less) ....'they exited' the labor
| force in larger numbers from the crisis onset")
|
| [4] The number is available in https://en.wikipedia.org/w
| iki/List_of_countries_by_share_of_...
| miltonlost wrote:
| Why are you now talking about Ecuador and COVID? And you
| haven't addressed the UK link where you say 24% but it's
| 6.5%. Makes the rest of what you blather more
| untrustworthy than it was
| umanwizard wrote:
| > Because that is bad for the individual worker.
|
| Not necessarily. Sure it is better if every other factor
| is held equal, but it's not: everyone benefits from
| living in a more highly economically developed society
| where industry is more successful. So you have to weigh
| pro-worker concerns against these other benefits.
|
| If your argument were valid then its logical conclusion
| would be that all profit from the business has to
| distributed to the employees (as in most traditional
| strains of far-left thought). In practice systems like
| that have major flaws.
| csallen wrote:
| It's not black and white. It's a sliding scale. Society
| already does a ton to look out for the individual worker.
| It's more a question of where things should fall on that
| scale.
|
| Coddling workers by expecting corporations to basically
| act as their family, their parents, their financial
| planners, their healthcare providers, etc., is terrible.
|
| We should not be telling people to expect any particular
| corporation to provide them a livelihood indefinitely,
| when it's a simple fact that corporations _cannot do
| that_. They can afford to pay you when it 's profitable
| for them to do so, and that's it. That's the deal.
| Period.
|
| I'm all for taking care of people. That's what our
| government should do itself. We should not be placing
| that role on corporations. And we should not be telling
| people to expect that their jobs will last forever and
| they can't be fired. We should instead tell people to
| maintain their skillsets, maintain their savings, and
| live within their means, so they can weather inevitable
| job changes. That's what caring for people actually looks
| like.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"These are business contracts."
|
| I would agree with this but if that's the case why
| employees are not given the same perks as companies from
| a tax point of view? My personal preference is to treat
| every human as a business. The alternative would be to
| eliminate all taxes except sales tax with some cutoff for
| low income persons.
| p_j_w wrote:
| >If you own a company, why shouldn't you be able to fire
| someone at any time?
|
| If you're a worker, why shouldn't you be able to band
| together with your fellow workers to not allow this?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Ages ago, I spoke with someone who had experience doing union
| organizing in the steel industry about why tech workers
| didn't unionize.
|
| I told him that the first step would be for tech workers to
| stop thinking that their greatest competition is other tech
| workers.
|
| (Flip the question: "If your coworkers are low-performing but
| the union prevents the company from firing them, why don't
| you just go form your own company with your three closest
| buddies and compete? That's the dream, right?")
| Eumenes wrote:
| > This is such a weird request for technology workers. You
| want to work with low-performing coworkers?
|
| Have you seen the zeitgeist by tech workers for DEI driven
| hiring processes? I have. Google notoriously does this with
| their scoring system (1 - no hire, 2 - weak no hire, 3 - weak
| hire, 4 - strong hire) ... you typically need above a 3.0 to
| get into hiring committees, but candidates of certain
| backgrounds are hired all_the_time with way lower scores than
| that.
| code_for_monkey wrote:
| this is just racism
| aliasxneo wrote:
| Interestingly, this comment can be interpreted both ways.
| The act of pushing people through a lower barrier based
| on their race can be inferred as racist, or the claim
| that such a thing is happening can also be inferred as
| racist.
|
| I spent eight years at Google, starting long before these
| DEI mandates came in (and did over a hundred interviews
| during that period). I think the person you're responding
| to is being sensationalist, but I also feel the way these
| measures were rolled out did end up missing out on a lot
| of great hires due to them not fitting the perceived
| makeup of the company.
|
| Funnily enough, I recall a specific meeting where they
| were planning to roll out measures to equalize pay
| between male and females. Prior to the rollout, they did
| an internal audit to understand the extent of the
| problem, and the audit came back highly favoring females
| over males. To Google's credit, they didn't move forward
| with it.
| Eumenes wrote:
| > I spent eight years at Google, starting long before
| these DEI mandates came in (and did over a hundred
| interviews during that period). I think the person you're
| responding to is being sensationalist, but I also feel
| the way these measures were rolled out did end up missing
| out on a lot of great hires due to them not fitting the
| perceived makeup of the company.
|
| If you were at Google that long, try to find someone who
| sat in on a hiring committee. They rubber stamped packets
| of candidates below the bar all the time. Interviewers
| were kept out of the loop by design. You rarely knew if
| the people you interviewed were hired or not (unless you
| worked for a small office). But yes, I agree, Google
| passed on many good candidates over the years, and thats
| why they let you interview multiple times. If you
| interviewed in 2011 and "just missed", you'd likely be a
| strong hire in 2015.
| adrianstoll wrote:
| > You rarely knew if the people you interviewed were
| hired or not
|
| Perhaps this has changed over the years. I recall there
| is a website listing all the people you have interviewed
| and their status (e.g. upcoming interview, rejected,
| application withdrawn etc)
| anonfordays wrote:
| /r/SelfAwareWolves-tier comment.
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| Serious doubt on this one. If I were to guess I'd imagine
| those people are recycled into different positions with a
| different bar.
| Eumenes wrote:
| Yes, that happened sometimes, but I saw it both ways.
|
| Example 1: candidate interviews for a SWE job, fails that
| round, but decent enough to be considered for a sales
| engineer cause of good people/comm skills.
|
| Example 2: candidate interviews for SWE job, comes from
| under-represented background, scores below the require
| threshold, gets pushed through because of DEI. If the
| case is close, the recruiter is required to find examples
| - references (external or internal) that are positive,
| which isn't hard.
| Timon3 wrote:
| Low performance _is_ an example of just cause. The employer
| simply has to prove that this was the case, and that they
| gave the employee notice, a chance to improve, and a
| reasonable standard to reach.
| ta1243 wrote:
| Problem is that require the employer to define what an
| acceptable level of performance is, and that's notoriously
| difficult
|
| So instead the choices tend to drift to "fire them on the
| manager's whim" or "practically impossible to get rid of
| short of murder"
| willsmith72 wrote:
| Who says it's notoriously difficult? I've worked many
| places with clear processes for identifying and resolving
| poor performance issues (firing being one possible
| resolution).
|
| That sounds like just your experience
| ta1243 wrote:
| It's massively common, factors into the whole office/home
| debates that have been raging for 4 years
|
| https://www.apqc.org/blog/better-measurement-knowledge-
| worke...
|
| The crux of growth in knowledge workers is that our
| current norms of measurement and productivity were
| developed in a manufacturing or manual task-oriented
| mindset. According to Peter Drucker, productivity for
| knowledge workers needs a different set of considerations
|
| https://www.cipd.org/globalassets/media/knowledge/knowled
| ge-...
|
| While in manual work the targets and outputs are usually
| clear, knowledge work and its results are less tangible,
| and therefore harder to define, measure and evaluate
|
| https://trepo.tuni.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/114586/palva
| lin...
|
| Drucker (1999) has even stated that knowledge worker
| productivity is the biggest challenge for modern work
| life. Other researchers have also discovered that the
| performance of an individual knowledge worker is the most
| important factor for organisational success... The need
| for general performance measurement is great as the theme
| is still quite new and there are very few previous
| studies measuring the effectiveness of NewWoW practices.
| There is also a need for practical tools for analysing
| and managing the performance of knowledge work from the
| NewWoW perspective. Organisations are still planning and
| making NewWoW changes, without clear evidence of their
| benefits and without any measurement information
| randomdata wrote:
| _> Other researchers have also discovered that the
| performance of an individual knowledge worker is the most
| important factor for organisational success... _
|
| Great, which means we have a way to measure individual
| performance with respect to what matters (organizational
| success). So what's the problem?
| ta1243 wrote:
| No it doesn't, it means we need a reliable way to do it
|
| > Organisations are still planning and making NewWoW
| changes, without clear evidence of their benefits and
| without any measurement information
| randomdata wrote:
| We have a reliable way to do it: The same way the
| researchers did when they showed that performance is the
| most important factor for organizational success. If your
| knowledge workers measure the same way the workers did in
| that research, you're golden.
|
| Unless you question the validity of the research? But if
| that's the case, why did you mention it as being
| significant in the first place?
| didntcheck wrote:
| > factors into the whole office/home debates that have
| been raging for 4 years
|
| Can you expand on that?
| ta1243 wrote:
| Some claim that people are just as effective, or more
| effective, working at home. Others claim the same but
| from the office.
|
| Clearly if it was possible to measure effectiveness
| unambiguously this wouldn't be a debate.
| magneticnorth wrote:
| If those are literally the only choices, then I vote for
| "practically impossible to get rid of."
|
| But I think this is a bit of hyperbole - some kind of
| ongoing, documented low performance seems obviously
| better than just letting managers fire on a whim.
| ta1243 wrote:
| I agree, that's the european approach.
| didntcheck wrote:
| And how is Europe doing in tech?
| code_for_monkey wrote:
| why are tech workers, my industry, so committed to this
| ideology? Do you think the tech layoffs of the last few years
| was a justified culling of lazy idiots?
| asdasdsddd wrote:
| yes mostly, i worked with many lazy idiots, who
| undeservedly made millions while our clients and customers
| suffered
| anon84873628 wrote:
| That's not how it went for us. I would have chosen a very
| different set of people to sack.
|
| Unfortunately I think those types of layoffs are separate
| from "firing" and probably not covered by these terms.
| code_for_monkey wrote:
| what do you think their opinions of you were?
| asdasdsddd wrote:
| a junior who was dumb enough to actually do work
| repeekad wrote:
| I think almost by definition a layoff is to remove
| redundant/bottom performers to keep the machine clean and
| lean, that's capitalism for ya
| mmooss wrote:
| The reason given is usually to cut costs, because the
| company claims to lack the cashflow or income to pay
| them. If the company can't afford it or doesn't believe
| they need it, they cut meat and bone and not just fat.
|
| Look at the news organizations laying off reporters in
| large numbers. The news organizations' product suffers
| considerably.
| abletonlive wrote:
| Honestly yes. I've been interviewing people that have
| gotten laid off and almost 75% of the time I'm thinking
| that they were probably chosen for layoffs due to low
| performance
| kergonath wrote:
| > I've been interviewing people that have gotten laid off
| and almost 75% of the time I'm thinking that they were
| probably chosen for layoffs due to low performance
|
| The people interviewing with you might be a biased subset
| of those that were laid off. I don't mean anything about
| your company, which could be great or terrible, I have no
| idea. But I would expect the best performers to get new
| positions quickly through their networks and connections.
| You would not see these people replying to random offers,
| but it does not mean that they were not high-performers
| who were laid off.
| abletonlive wrote:
| > The people interviewing with you might be a biased
| subset of those that were laid off.
|
| I suspect this to be very likely the case but I don't
| think it changes anything here. If we laid off people
| that were high performers and they got taken up in the
| job market quickly that means things are still healthy
| and we are still giving jobs to people that deserve jobs.
| A net neutral effect on the system as a whole.
|
| The stragglers that can't find new jobs because they were
| laid off for low performance AND also are low performing
| interviewers are not useful to the system. Now they just
| kind of eat up some interviewing productivity but thats
| probably a net-positive for the entire job market as a
| whole.
| lc9er wrote:
| I'm old enough to remember a time when people in tech were
| called 'wizards' and there was an air of mystery that
| surrounded the industry. A large subset of this group
| really seems to have bought into the idea that working in
| tech makes you 'special'. It does not. It's a skilled
| profession that is trainable and attainable by large swaths
| of the population. Working in tech does not make you
| special (Yes - you) and the tech industry is well overdue
| for quality of life improvements that other, organized,
| sectors have had for decades.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Back in 1978, when I worked as an electronics assembly
| technician, the company (Aph) decided to take us to a
| local electronics convention in Los Angeles. We showed up
| and got in line to get our steenkin' badges. I was in
| front, and was asked what my job title was.
|
| As I was soldering boards together, I said "gnome". The
| clerk laughed, and said "no, seriously". I said
| "seriously, gnome". We argued a bit, and he capitulated,
| saying I was going to be sorry. The Aph guy behind me
| heard the debate, and asked for "wizard" as his job
| title. And so forth for all the employees. I think the
| owner of Aph asked for "grand wizard" or something like
| that.
|
| Wandering around the convention floor, people would read
| our badges and laugh. It was all great fun.
|
| After that, such job titles appeared on business cards,
| convention badges, etc.
|
| I flatter myself in suspecting that it was I who started
| it!
| anon84873628 wrote:
| I think people who entered the industry before 2010
| (maybe even later) don't understand the current reality.
|
| Previously, you were probably a dork in high school and
| mostly self taught for the love of technology. You might
| have gone through a prestigious academic CS program and
| cultivated a sense of superiority over the humanities and
| biz school kids. Outsourcing / off shoring was a thing
| but you had the innate protection of skin color and
| acculturation.
|
| Today it's just another thing some people study because
| that's where the jobs are.
| hildolfr wrote:
| Have you found the things you say to actually be true?
|
| I've worked with people that were passionate about the
| art their entire life , and I've worked with on-job
| trained people in equivalent positions -- the difference
| in code quality/structure/logic is pretty telling between
| the two camps.
|
| It certainly makes one think that either the skill set is
| 'special', or that we're really in the experimental trial
| phase of learning how to teach it to those otherwise
| uninterested.
| quandrum wrote:
| No, I want management to develop a system to determine who is
| low-performing, document when those workers don't meet the
| standards of performance, and reference those documents when
| they fire someone.
|
| It's just asking for due process.
| stogot wrote:
| What makes you think they don't have that?
| quandrum wrote:
| Because the union is striking over it
| stogot wrote:
| That conclusion does not explain your arguments. The
| place is over 100 years old and surely have HR processes.
| This is more likely about the union trying to prevent
| layoffs
| cmptrnerd6 wrote:
| I have never seen such a system that I thought worked or
| wasn't just gamed into uselessness.
|
| Do you have any examples of systems that worked well?
| leereeves wrote:
| > I want management to develop a system to determine who is
| low-performing
|
| You're asking them to solve a problem people have been
| working on for decades without success. How can they
| measure productivity of tech workers?
| bko wrote:
| This sounds good, but in my experience bad employees were
| known to everyone. It was difficult to pinpoint exactly why
| they were bad or toxic, but pretty much everyone agreed. If
| you gave them some benchmark they would need to hit (e.g.
| close tickets, be on call, etc), they would be able to do
| so. So creating a documentation trail is difficult,
| especially if its based on people saying they don't think
| he does good work or people don't want to work with him.
|
| This is where I break with the "pro worker" dialog you hear
| online a lot. In my experience, competent employees are
| incredible difficult to come by. Recruiters are paid a few
| months salary just to get someone through the door. To
| think that employers are just randomly firing people for no
| reason has never struck me as being even remotely true. I'd
| prefer the quick to hire, quick to fire economy. Especially
| since employers would be much less likely to take a chance
| if they know there are a lot of hoops they'd have to jump
| through if it didn't work out
| axus wrote:
| It's like the unpopular, friendless kids in high school,
| you just know. And there's nothing they can do to change
| it.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Less negativity and more listening by everyone can be a
| place to start.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| With what time?
|
| Middle managers don't suddenly get 28 hours in a day
| after someone offers this suggestion. Their schedules are
| already maxed out, so every extra minute of focused
| attention needed is literally coming from someone else's
| (or some other department's) budget.
| ars wrote:
| I tried that with someone once, I got an enormous list of
| complaints about all the wrong things everyone else was
| doing wrong.
|
| And utterly zero awareness of what they themselves were
| doing wrong.
|
| Attempting to explain it to them was a complete failure.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It's a fun challenge to try to enlighten them about how
| things can go wrong with their approach.
| tssva wrote:
| If they are meeting the metrics set to judge their
| performance how are they bad employees? If the metrics
| don't properly measure whether the job is being done then
| change the metrics.
| umanwizard wrote:
| > If the metrics don't properly measure whether the job
| is being done then change the metrics.
|
| Nobody has ever come up with a good set of objective
| metrics to judge software engineer performance. So the
| best we have is still the subjective opinions of your
| managers and peers.
| fallingsquirrel wrote:
| What metrics do you propose that aren't susceptible to
| Goodhart's law?
| joenot443 wrote:
| Like in the cases of US courts defining obscenity or fair
| use, there isn't necessarily a set of metrics which can
| be used to perfectly taxonomize something.
|
| Imagine I sent a manuscript to a publishing house and
| they rejected it for being bad. I wouldn't expect they
| got to that conclusion by comparing it to a set of
| metrics, I would assume they have people in authority
| whose judgement is the decider on whether something is
| "good" or "bad".
| 39896880 wrote:
| Your analogy only works when applied to the hiring stage,
| as that is when the publishing house decides to work with
| you. If the publisher accepted your manuscript, assigned
| you an editor, gave you a target publish date, and gave
| you advance and then suddenly booted you and said "your
| work isn't good" you'd have some questions, and rightly
| so.
| stickfigure wrote:
| This sort of thing happens all the time? Many manuscripts
| and screenplays are stillborn. Movies make it halfway
| through production before the plug is pulled. Software
| projects fail left and right, with millions of dollars
| spent (sometimes billions!)
|
| Human endeavors sometimes fail to live up to
| expectations.
| tssva wrote:
| The original comment was regarding employees currently
| being judged via metrics bringing up whether certain jobs
| can or cannot be judged using metrics is pointless.
| isbvhodnvemrwvn wrote:
| They meet these metrics while they are under formal
| process just before termination. I used to work with a
| couple people clearly working multiple jobs who switched
| focus when they were PIPed.
| tssva wrote:
| If they are refocused on their job and now meeting
| metrics why terminate them? People can become unfocused
| for a variety of reasons beyond working other jobs. Life
| happens. If they don't remain focused and again don't
| meet metrics they have already been given an opportunity
| and should then be terminated.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > If the metrics don't properly measure whether the job
| is being done then change the metrics.
|
| For workers who work with their heads, "metrics" is a
| fantasy. How do you measure a better writer?
| tssva wrote:
| Well the comment I was responding to specifically called
| out employees meeting metrics and still not being
| considered good employees, so your point is a little moot
| to my comment but I will reapond anyways.
|
| How do you measure a better writer? It depends on what
| the purpose of the writing is. If it is an author
| directly selling books then you measure by books sold. If
| it is an online publication you can conduct surveys to
| determine the impact of a particular writer on
| subscription or view rates. If it is a techincal writer
| doing product documentation you can measure based upon
| meeting schedule, number of defects and by conducting
| customer surveys.
| WalterBright wrote:
| There are no objective criteria as to what is "good"
| writing vs "bad" writing.
|
| > If it is an author directly selling books then you
| measure by books sold.
|
| This is a fairly lousy metric. It depends enormously on
| the marketing campaign and the ability of salesmen to
| sell it.
|
| For example, I read an article about the author of the
| "Slow Horses" book. It languished for years selling at a
| rate that was indistinguishable from zero. Then some
| journalist read it, wrote a glowing review of it, and it
| took off. Now it's a best seller, with sequels, and a
| miniseries.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| It is possible to both have some metrics and not have
| them be the only way you determine if an employee is
| doing a good job. Because some things can't be measured,
| and some can.
| slg wrote:
| >If you gave them some benchmark they would need to hit
| (e.g. close tickets, be on call, etc), they would be able
| to do so.
|
| Isn't this just a sign of bad management? If employees
| are capable of doing the work when their job is on the
| line, it isn't a question of skill or ability. It is a
| failure of the company to properly motivate, challenge,
| and reward them for their work.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Isn 't this just a sign of bad management? If
| employees are capable of doing the work when their job is
| on the line_
|
| It's _HN_. We've all been maliciously compliant. I can
| close tickets without solving any problems or be on call
| in the most useless ways imaginable just fine.
| slg wrote:
| I just read that as "management has no idea how to
| evaluate the quality of work of their employees".
|
| Either the company should be able to evaluate an
| employee's performance and therefore can show proof of
| poor performance or it can't properly evaluate an
| employee's performance and therefore shouldn't be firing
| people based off an admittedly inaccurate measure of
| performance.
| stickfigure wrote:
| How are you going to accurately measure "your code is
| shit"? If it was that easy, it would be a standard git
| hook.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I've noticed it is entirely possible for code to be
| written that absolutely conforms with every good coding
| style rule, and is utter garbage (even if it works!).
| umanwizard wrote:
| > I just read that as "management has no idea how to
| evaluate the quality of work of their employees".
|
| You probably couldn't explain how you walk, or how you
| cook an egg, or how you speak English, at the level of
| detail that would be required for something like this.
| Yet you do know how to do all those things.
|
| Just because you can't write down detailed objective
| instructions for how to do something does not at all mean
| you have no idea how to do it.
| danaris wrote:
| So should we apply this logic to other areas where one
| person's "gut reactions" can have a huge negative effect
| on someone else's life?
|
| Should we not require any due process under law, because
| the officer "just knew" that it was that brown guy who
| stole the bread?
|
| What's being asked for is _accountability_ for decisions
| that can literally result in someone ending up homeless--
| and that are _hugely_ subject to bias, both conscious and
| unconscious, in a country that is currently riven by
| divisions of race, gender, sexuality, and class.
| umanwizard wrote:
| I would be very surprised if there is anyone who would
| become homeless if they were fired from their tech job at
| the New York Times.
| haswell wrote:
| This assumes that evaluations can be neatly defined and
| tracked. There's another front page post right now about
| exactly this. The soft (often difficult to
| define/measure) skills required of a manager are the same
| skills that are required to make the decisions to fire
| people.
|
| I think almost everyone has worked with someone who they
| know _shouldn 't_ be there, but they still are because
| they keep finding ways to technically meet the letter of
| the law when it comes to "performance". And yet they are
| clearly a huge anchor for the team, and everyone knows
| the team would be better off without them.
|
| I wish we could perfectly evaluate what it means to be a
| good employee, and we could show the exact measurements
| used to do so. But this simply is not realistic, never
| has been, nor will it likely ever be. The spectrum of
| possible behaviors and the intricate interplay unique to
| various teams makes such a task impossible. I'm not
| saying an effort shouldn't be made, but that these
| decisions are often highly subjective, without much hope
| of arriving at something more objective.
|
| I've worked at places that had stringent requirements for
| firing people. The net result was that good people all
| leave voluntarily instead of being stuck with the problem
| individuals, ultimately resulting in teams full of
| mediocre-to-awful teammates.
|
| Managers can both know how to evaluate quality and fit
| while not having any hope of perfectly defining and
| documenting those evaluations. I'd rather work in an
| environment that has at-will employment with all of the
| downsides that come with that than a place that can't
| fire employees without spending a year creating a
| mountain of paperwork that ultimately doesn't get anyone
| much closer to the objectivity people are striving to
| achieve.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _but they still are because they keep finding ways to
| technically meet the letter of the law when it comes to
| "performance"_
|
| Remember that homework assignment or group project where
| you spent an inordinate amount of time and effort on not
| doing the work as intended in some silly way? This is the
| adult version of that.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I've found it amusing how some people will spend more
| effort pretending to work than actually doing the work.
|
| The same with students who'd go to great lengths to
| cheat, rather than spend a few minutes learning the
| material.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I was going to reply with something like this, but you
| nailed it.
| vundercind wrote:
| Comically, the entire _world_ basically has no idea how
| to evaluate the quality of management. Not with metrics,
| anyway. It 's all vibes and guesswork, or else it's
| "data-driven" but transparently bullshit.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Good employees make the company successful in spite of
| bad management. If you don't want to do this, fine, find
| another company to work for where you do want to do this.
| legitster wrote:
| I worked in fast food and this resonates _extremely_ with
| me. There were only 4-5 people in a kitchen during the
| busy rush, and there was a list everyone knew of people
| they didn 't want to get stuck in a shift with. If
| someone sucks to work with, it really sucks, and because
| everyone is pitching in and working together, there is no
| indication that the person was bad at their job. If you
| were fired, it was usually because your fellow workers
| said you were bad.
|
| I'm all on board with better pay and benefits. But
| protecting mediocrity doesn't benefit customers _or other
| workers_. Companies may occasionally arbitrarily fire
| good employees without a good cause, but that would be
| _their_ loss.
|
| One thing you'll notice in employee-owned companies (as
| opposed to unionized companies) is that they generally do
| no tolerate such clauses in their contracts.
| shagie wrote:
| Price's Law is "50% of the work is done by the square
| root of the total number of people who participate in the
| work."
|
| https://dariusforoux.com/prices-law/
|
| https://routine.co/blog/what-is-the-prices-law-and-why-
| is-it...
| araes wrote:
| So, extending that rule (approximately):
|
| All the actual work on Earth is performed by sqrt(
| 3,630,000,000 )[1] or:
|
| ~60,000 workers
|
| [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.TOTL.IN
|
| "Based on choosing the current estimates of Labor force,
| total"
| shagie wrote:
| Half of all of the work - not all of all of the work.
| ars wrote:
| Is everyone on earth working on the same project?
| legitster wrote:
| You are missing the implication in the equation that
| smaller projects/teams are more efficient.
| hughesjj wrote:
| Gotcha, Singleton sole proprietorships it is. Down with
| complexity, break up every business! /s
| hughesjj wrote:
| "law" is an incredible term used for "an observation a
| physicist made about the author citations of academic
| papers at one point in time", especially when you try to
| extend that to software development, and realize that
| there's other competing theories with supposedly better
| fits. I have not independently re-run the analysis
| myself, but lotka's law claims to be better an in general
| these are all special cases of zipf's laws, which is
| admittedly where I personally first heard this concept.
|
| ...which is probably why you only see this stuff
| regurgitated in blog posts and right-wing Malcolm
| gladwell (Jordan Peterson is quoted as the source in one
| of your cited blog posts).
|
| Either way, I'd be highly, highly suspect of parroting
| Price's "law" as a fact.
|
| (I get stuff like Conway's law or Moore or Murphy are all
| also cited as laws, and I don't like that terminology
| either. "Conjecture" would fit so much better, save for
| Murphy's)
|
| Even if the law were true regarding authorship, and
| applied to software, that still wouldn't show that the
| "valuable contributions" are only made by virtue of a
| small set of excellent contributors -- see "Matthew
| effect"
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| You can still be pro-worker even if you think sometimes a
| certain worker is bad, or hard to work with, or otherwise
| a "bad employee." It is more something _political_ and
| something about how you view the world /humanity in
| general. It is not an "identity politics" where the
| discussion is around certain _kinds_ of people or not.
| That would be kinda silly anyway on its face, we are
| virtually _all_ workers!
| taurath wrote:
| > To think that employers are just randomly firing people
| for no reason has never struck me as being even remotely
| true
|
| Have you only ever worked with reasonable management? The
| problem with quick to hire quick to fire is that
| eventually you might be quick to fire. I suspect you have
| a much higher level of security than most people to have
| quality of coworkers as a top priority!
| RHSeeger wrote:
| Heck, there's companies where standard practice is "fire
| the lowest x% of workers on a regular basis". Doesn't
| even matter if they're doing a good job or not; just that
| someone else is doing a _better_ job.
|
| Optimal strategy is to sabotage your coworkers in such an
| environment.
| vundercind wrote:
| The looser overall firing rules are, the harder it is for
| the union to protect members from e.g. firing for
| insisting on adherence to
| safety/security/contractual/employment policies/laws.
| Threat-of-firing-backed pressure on all those fronts is
| incredibly common outside companies with strong unions.
| kjksf wrote:
| That might by what YOU want or what you hallucinate the
| demand is but most reasonable interpretation of what we
| know is that they in fact want to prevent being fired for
| low performance.
|
| if you can be fired "only for misconduct" and low
| performance doesn't count as misconduct means that you
| cannot be fired for low performance.
|
| Granted, the actual demand might be more nuanced but going
| only by what was reported, they don't want to be fired for
| low performance.
| Timon3 wrote:
| No, what's reported is that the tech workers are asking
| for a "just cause" provision. This is a well-established
| legal concept that explicitly includes what GP posted.
| The reporting you're reading that fails to mention this
| happens to be from the New York Times. Can you guess why
| they don't mention this?
| Vaslo wrote:
| Due process from a union definition is often ridiculous and
| protects the members beyond what a reasonable
| customer/employer should expect.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| Amazing. That's what negotiating is for. The union gives
| the maximal version of what they want, the bosses
| counter, everybody celebrates the results.
| platz wrote:
| Isn't employment in the US At-Will anyways?
| brewdad wrote:
| Yes in absence of an employment contract that says
| otherwise. One of the primary objectives of any US union
| is to establish guidelines for dismissal of employee
| members that override at-will.
| umanwizard wrote:
| > I want management to develop a system to determine who is
| low-performing
|
| Nobody has ever invented a working system for objectively
| rating software engineers. I really doubt NYT will be the
| ones to do so!
| kccqzy wrote:
| Requiring management to document these decisions is already
| itself placing low trust in management. I do not want to
| work at any workplace where trust in management is so low
| that low performance needs to be documented with a paper
| trail. I'd rather work at a workplace where the management
| is consistently competent and people place high trust in
| the management; so that when management fires someone
| everyone else agrees without having a need for
| documentation to prove low performance.
|
| Disclaimer: this is only my opinion on where to work. I'm
| fully aware there are many other good reasons why
| management needs to document low performance.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| I'm genuinely curious, are there any employees that work
| with a company that has good managers? I have heard so
| many bad stories of poisonous corporate culture its hard
| for me to see how there would be good managers. I haven't
| worked as an employee since the early 2000's.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Nearly all the managers I've had throughout my career
| have been good. Of course people in a bad situation are
| more likely to complain about it, so the impression you
| might get from reading a forum like this is heavily
| biased.
| senko wrote:
| Hello from Europe. Tried that, didn't work.
|
| It's incredibly hard to quantify "low-performing" for
| white-collar workers, because any measure is either easily
| gamed, actually creates roadblocks and bad incentives, or
| both.
|
| Now companies are wary of hiring people because it's harder
| to fire.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > companies are wary of hiring people because it's harder
| to fire
|
| This is another one of those obvious "unintended"
| consequences. The harder it is to fire someone, the
| correspondingly harder it will be to get hired. Companies
| will be unwilling to "take a chance" on someone.
| ramblenode wrote:
| > No, I want management to develop a system to determine
| who is low-performing
|
| The system here is going to be something like LoC or
| tickets answered, things that are objective and easy to
| measure. We know these don't reflect real productivity, but
| because they are objective, that's what will be used in
| promotion and firing decisions. Anything subjective, even
| if it's the opinions of peers or experts, will be
| contestable in due process hearings, creating risk for the
| employer, and will be deemphasized or eliminated. One
| reason why the US government and European software
| companies are relatively uncompetitive in hiring is because
| of the difficulties created by due process in firing bad
| employees and promoting good ones.
| araes wrote:
| > We know these don't reflect real productivity
|
| Mild issue with this. Mostly, cause it's a one size fits
| all. There's a certain kind of productivity worker that
| actually responds relatively well to that type of metric.
| That vagueness results in stagnation and analysis
| paralysis.
|
| Those workers tend to actually respond better to what the
| game community almost considers the grind mindset. Give
| us a well defined hallway, with well defined tasks, and
| then we'll walk down the well defined hallway. It may not
| be "super creative" productivity, yet it's a "form" or
| "type" of productivity.
|
| Part of the issue also, is a lot of the time, people seem
| to always want to be the Einstein of the company, and
| nobody really wants to deal with the day-to-day shit.
| It's simply not status enough, or management visible
| enough, or high-level content enough, or similar.
| pc86 wrote:
| It's not "just asking for due process." Everyone has
| interacted with a government office with an absolutely
| worthless employee who is just sitting around counting down
| the days to retirement where they can continue getting
| taxpayer money for doing nothing. Just because there's a
| process to get rid of someone doesn't mean it will ever
| happen.
|
| This is a ploy to make it harder to fire bad programmers.
| If I have to try to hit a deadline and my coworker is
| garbage, I want my boss to be able to fire them and start
| finding a replacement, not start a six month process of
| paperwork, meetings, and HR CYA bullshit with the sole
| purpose of avoiding some bogus NLRB complaint.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I read a statistic some years ago that public school
| teachers have the lowest rate of firing of any
| profession. The union has been successful in instituting
| a "process" for firing a teacher that is so onerous, time
| consuming, and complicated that it never happens.
|
| The only way a teacher can get fired these days is for
| showing up drunk or high, or having relations with a
| student.
|
| (And yes, in spite of this, there are some gems of
| teachers.)
| inhumantsar wrote:
| > showing up drunk or high, or having relations with a
| student
|
| having worked in a school district and staying in touch
| with colleagues afterward, I can honestly say that most
| people would be surprised at the number of teachers _aren
| 't_ fired for misconduct like that, particularly showing
| up drunk or high.
|
| it seems that getting shuffled into an administrative
| role or a year of paid leave are the goto solutions
| whenever an incident can be handled quietly.
|
| back in my grade school days, there was one teacher who
| would routinely lose her shit and scream at people.
|
| when it inevitably escalated beyond that (usually
| throwing objects.. chalkboard erasers, garbage cans, even
| the occasional chair), she would simply end up teaching
| at a different school in the same district.
|
| they managed to keep that game going for over _twenty
| years_.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I suppose it's worse than I thought!
|
| I read that teachers are fired at a lesser rate than
| doctors having their medical license revoked.
| vundercind wrote:
| There are multiple unions involved with teaching,
| depending on the state, not just one national one (the
| NEA or what have you). In some states teachers unions are
| effectively toothless and aren't even part of the
| contract negotiation process.
|
| This should make it pretty easy to see how union strength
| affects firing rates (no, I don't happen to have the data
| on hand). IME schools tend to avoid firing teachers even
| when they easily could, in favor of pushing them out,
| because they don't want the bad press from a firing, so
| my _guess_ is firing rates for teachers are low
| everywhere.
|
| We might further hope to see whether union strength
| affects education quality, but there are too many
| confounders--the states with weak teachers unions tend to
| be red states and to have weak economies, either or both
| of which may have stronger effects on educational
| outcomes than union activity. But, on the specific
| question of the effect of teachers unions on teacher
| firing rates, we can maybe get _something like_ a useful
| experiment out of these state-by-state differences.
| WalterBright wrote:
| What would you suggest is the reason for _extremely_ low
| firing rates for union teachers?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >Everyone has interacted with a government office with an
| absolutely worthless employee who is just sitting around
| counting down the days to retirement
|
| This is not because "it's hard to fire government
| workers" as often stated, but simply because government
| runs on a shoestring budget and cannot hire only good
| people.
|
| Also because a shocking amount of people working in local
| government didn't realize Ron Swanson was a fucking
| satire character.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| > If I have to try to hit a deadline and my coworker is
| garbage, I want my boss to be able to fire them and start
| finding a replacement
|
| It appears we have stopped teaching Mythical Man Month in
| university.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > It's just asking for due process.
|
| The problem with that is it's a subjective decision, not an
| objective one.
|
| In every workplace I've been in, it was obvious to everyone
| who the low performers were. But it's nearly impossible to
| prove it.
|
| Even if they could document it, it would take a year to
| document it, costing the company another $100,000 just to
| replace them.
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| That would be weird, so it is obviously not the case. That is
| because you are quoting only half of the (excerpt of the)
| point.
| lallysingh wrote:
| Who wrote the article? What's their interest in the issue?
| legitster wrote:
| It's particularly an awful request to pair with remote work.
|
| "I should be able to work anywhere so long as it doesn't
| affect my performance..."
|
| "Also don't judge me based on performance".
|
| I think people need to be honest that WFH is as an argument
| is tightly integrated with merit.
| eloisant wrote:
| I don't see the link. Does working in office means you're
| allowed to do a crappy job?
| legitster wrote:
| I mean, in the context of most union agreements with a
| similar provision, kinda.
|
| Your union might protect you from termination on an
| assembly line, and at least they can move you around the
| facility or bring in extra workers. Or for a teacher they
| bring in more supervision and resources.
|
| In contexts where unions have similar provisions, direct
| supervision is implied.
| RobRivera wrote:
| Bc management never abuses the optics to force out people
| that they dont like, vs someone productive, ever.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Usually they don't like someone because they are poor
| performers. As a person who has owned a business with
| employees, you naturally like the ones that are making you
| money. In fact, I'd put up with a whole lot of things I
| don't like if they make money for me.
|
| As a manager, I'd naturally want to retain the people who
| made me look good to _my_ manager, regardless of my
| personal feelings.
|
| Having a personal vendetta against particular employees has
| never happened in my experience, though it's been alleged a
| lot.
| feedforward wrote:
| When the wealth created by those who work at the New York
| Times is sent out in dividends to those who do no work or
| create wealth there, what is performance of these rentiers?
|
| You're arguing on the side of the rentiers and parasites who
| do not work, and lecturing about "low performance".
|
| It's the people doing the work's purview to discuss
| performance, not the parasites.
| ff317 wrote:
| Why were those "rentiers and parasites" ever involved? Why
| wasn't the NYT (or any other Thing) just created by the
| workers without their involvement? The answer in practice
| is that they provided value by providing the necessary
| capital to build the thing, and they did so in return for a
| cut of the future wealth earned by the thing. It's arguable
| that the wealth inequality that set the initial conditions
| for this is out of hand, but given the starting conditions,
| how else do you make big things?
| umanwizard wrote:
| Nothing forces you to go work for those so-called
| "parasites" if you don't want to. You are perfectly allowed
| to start your own worker-owned journalism collective if
| that's what you prefer.
| kergonath wrote:
| Personally, I prefer having a few low-performing people
| around than being in a state of existential threat of being
| fired for no reason by a middle manager. They are easier to
| work around.
|
| Anyway, no, that is not what they want.
| lc9er wrote:
| Most of the anti-union tech workers I've encountered over my
| career have _vastly_ overestimated their abilities and value
| to the workforce. Their willingness to suffer abuse from
| employers (while taking pride in their refusal to establish
| boundaries) makes working conditions worse for all of us.
| bradlys wrote:
| The most aggressive I've seen advocating against unions are
| not ICs anymore and often are a part of management/capital.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Most of the pro-union tech workers I know have never been
| forced to join a corrupt union that does nothing to help
| them while keeping the good old boys who contribute little
| to the company employed. Many tech workers are paid in
| stock so theres tons of incentive to get rid of low
| performers.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Sounds like a best of both worlds scenario. The
| overconfident tech bros can get to work "disrupting"
| unions and re-learning the same lessons.
| mavelikara wrote:
| Someone could be pro-union and still not support that
| clause.
| eikenberry wrote:
| If the alternative is to be under constant existential threat
| of being laid off... I could see is as the lesser evil. IMO,
| recent events are the reason for this item being included.
| WalterBright wrote:
| A sensible person would not have their finances stretched
| so thin that they cannot deal with an interruption in their
| employment. I.e. one should be setting aside at least 10%
| of their income.
|
| I worked for a company once that was doing poorly, and
| management decided to do an across-the-board 10% pay cut.
| One of my coworkers was livid with rage. I asked him why
| didn't he just quit and get another job? He said he didn't
| have any savings at all, and bills to pay. He had a
| mcmansion with expensive new furniture, new cars for
| himself and his wife, and expensive clothes. He had forged
| the chain connecting him to his desk - not the company's
| fault.
| eikenberry wrote:
| Savings don't protect you from the stress unless you've
| saved enough to retire. Savings provides a buffer of time
| you get to find another job, but you still have to find
| (and land) that job. Given how f'd-up tech hiring is and
| the current job market that might not be as easy as it
| sounds... So I can understand why people want to avoid
| that level of stress and the compromises they will make
| to do that.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Having savings to give you a buffer of time is much less
| stressful than no savings.
| eikenberry wrote:
| No doubt it is _way_ less stressful... going from "I'm
| going to need to have an accident so my family can live
| off my life insurance" to "I need to see a doctor about
| all this ulcer". But you'd still rather not have the
| ulcer.
| bojo wrote:
| > Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to
| pull.
|
| That sounds like an anti-union stance to me.
|
| There's no better time to strike than when your opponent can't
| afford to look bad.
| sp527 wrote:
| What's wrong with being anti-union?
|
| I'm extremely anti-union principally because they drive up
| costs to consumers while yielding a product or service of at
| best comparable (but usually degraded) quality. Some easy
| examples are UAW destroying Detroit automakers or the recent
| dockworkers strike involving uneducated laborers demanding
| compensation ludicrously in excess of what even most people
| with master's degrees make, all to drastically under-perform
| equivalent workers from almost anywhere else in the world. To
| top it off, those same dockworkers zealously guard access to
| those highly lucrative jobs with some very questionable
| tactics.
|
| When you drive by a highway construction project that doesn't
| progress for years or, worse, a horde of workers, most of
| whom appear to be doing absolutely nothing, there's a good
| chance that's union fuckery. When you go to almost any hotel
| in NYC and are treated with borderline disdain by highly
| incompetent staff while paying $500+ a night, that's union
| fuckery. When you wonder why you can't get cheap sufficiently
| high quality EVs like those from China, that's union fuckery.
| I could go on.
|
| Unions are not comprised of saints. They're doing the same
| thing as the companies they despise: getting theirs while
| fucking over everyone else.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| > Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to
| pull.
|
| If a strike isnt painful for the employer, what incentive do
| they have to negotiate?
| maronato wrote:
| Negotiations have been going on for 2 years, and the strike was
| approved in September. This isn't a spur-of-the-moment,
| attention-seeking thing and was totally preventable by NYT.
|
| https://www.axios.com/2024/09/10/nyt-tech-union-strike-vote
| dehrmann wrote:
| > Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to
| pull
|
| Siblings are doubting this, but you can think of it like price
| gouging. It's the right behavior for extracting maximum value,
| but it burns a lot of trust, and that's important for a long-
| term business arrangement. It's playing the short game when
| they should be playing the long game.
| maronato wrote:
| Strikes happen when the trust is already burned. This has
| been going on for a long time, and we're only seeing the
| public side of the conflict.
|
| > The guild, which was formed in 2022, has yet to secure a
| contract after more than two years of bargaining.
|
| https://www.axios.com/2024/09/10/nyt-tech-union-strike-vote
| lucianbr wrote:
| Maybe there is little trust left? I don't know about NYT in
| particular, but the news regularly suggests employees
| trusting businesses are nothing but suckers.
| feedforward wrote:
| > Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to
| pull.
|
| Yes, heaven forbid the people doing all the work and creating
| all the wealth actually use their leverage against the heirs
| collecting NYT dividends.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| > Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to
| pull.
|
| According to the NY Times article, this was outlined and agreed
| to by the union on September 10th. So this is the poison pill
| because the agreement wasn't finished over the last 2 months.
| 39896880 wrote:
| > Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to
| pull.
|
| Can we get a definitive list of weeks where workers' rights are
| officially less important than $world_event? That way we can
| schedule our requests appropriately. We don't want to
| inconvenience anyone.
| legitster wrote:
| I know you are trying to be flip, but there topics that are
| more important than worker's rights. I'm not going to argue
| that the NYTimes crossword is up there, but I think a good
| case can be made that independent journalism is up there,
| especially during open elections.
|
| There is a long list of organizations and governments that
| made worker's rights more important than inclusive democratic
| institutions, and it didn't work out for anyone, especially
| the workers.
|
| Maybe any of the 207 weeks between presidential elections? Or
| any of the thousands of weeks when one of the running
| candidates has threatened the legitimacy of their institution
| directly?
| marricks wrote:
| Day of election there is a big tally when votes come in and
| pictures of American Democracy In Action with a bunch of
| puff stories about people in lines. Huge time for
| viewership, not a huge time for important journalism.
|
| There is no perfect time to strike, but I think other
| outlets can cover the typical:
|
| - "huge lines in Pennsylvania!"
|
| - "Polls close in [KEY SWING STATE] in 2 hours!"
|
| - "Wow the whole west coast went blue, who would have
| thought!"
|
| - "Shocker that one battleground is going into recount
| which will somehow last 4 weeks."
| petesergeant wrote:
| There will be absolutely no shortage of other places where
| Americans get their election news, and arguably at a higher
| quality than NYT. I will miss their election ticker
| dashboard widget thing though, that thing is cool.
| Justsignedup wrote:
| All people who don't care say "can you please go over there,
| in the corner, where I can't see you, so you can protest and
| I can appropriately ignore you."
|
| The point of a protest is to annoy you. Annoy you enough into
| action.
| hollerith wrote:
| What action am I supposed to take on behalf of these
| cognitively-privileged workers already earning six-figure
| salaries?
| science4sail wrote:
| Annoyance so that bystanders support the protesters'
| demands or annoyance so that bystanders act against the
| protesters out of spite? After all, the Westboro Baptist
| Church's protests don't seem to have been very effective at
| promoting the cause of homophobia.
|
| I think that protests are a risky move unless the general
| population is already sympathetic to the protesters' goals.
| dang wrote:
| Please make your substantive points without snark. This is in
| the site guidelines:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
| madars wrote:
| That's not snark, that's just taking their argument to its
| logical conclusion. Big difference.
| dang wrote:
| Of course people understand a term like 'snark' in
| different ways, so in that sense your point is fine.
|
| But the comment was clearly using sarcasm as an internet
| hammer, which is what that guideline is asking people not
| to do. It's bad for curious conversation, which is what
| we want here.
| marricks wrote:
| > Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to
| pull
|
| NYTimes has dragged out the negotiations for months, refusing
| to have a contract. It's kinda a make or break time for the
| union.
|
| When would be better to strike, what time would NYTimes and the
| audience prefer? It should be during a choke point otherwise
| management wouldn't listen.
|
| Additionally, this is a high traffic time, but not really a
| high stakes time I'd argue. They're not going to influence the
| election by going out day before or day of it, they will just
| lose viewership to others covering what's happening.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| Didn't Wirecutter once strike during Black Friday?
|
| https://nypost.com/2021/11/25/workers-at-new-york-times-
| wire...
| notatoad wrote:
| >When would be better to strike
|
| i think the point the parent is making is that a better time
| to strike would be when they have specific demands that
| management is able to meet - to get them to the negotiating
| table, or to get them to sign a contract.
|
| but in the case where management is already at the
| negotiating table, and there's no contract to be signed, it's
| not clear what short-term goal a strike is meant to achieve.
| the only thing it does is cause hurt. Hurting management is
| going to make their negotiations more difficult. and hurting
| management in this specific way is not just hurting
| management, it's also alienating their journalist colleagues
| who should be their strongest allies in this fight.
| marricks wrote:
| > when they have specific demands that management is able
| to meet
|
| It's just wild how management is able to unilaterally
| decide what is and isn't reasonable, and just label unions
| as childish.
|
| "We want to help you, but you're hurting us!" is one small
| step away from "gosh we love the idea of unions but it
| causes too much friction between workers and management,
| and trust me, management knows best."
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| I don't think parent is defending the management here;
| rather pointing out that it's a strategic error to play
| your strongest negotiating card before you are ready to
| make the deal. True, the New York Times will miss out on
| the election coverage bonanza this time, but unless the
| union can say "sign here to make this problem go away"
| they are just hurting the management for nothing. I've
| only heard of the story today, but it doesn't sound like
| the union even has a written offer ready.
| marricks wrote:
| Pretty sure they're ready to make the deal if they get
| just-cause, work from home, and salary.
|
| It's been a long time they've been trying to make a deal
| so it's disingenuous to say they're pulling the card
| early. Management refused to come to the table until
| recently.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| NY Times management has been accused of some extremely
| shady stuff. For example, their chief union negotiator is
| also responsible for disciplining wayward staff members.
| Union members who strongly advocate get more infractions
| and punishments than those who are passive.
| blululu wrote:
| Not sure how risky this really is for the Union. Their software
| engineers are taking a pay cut for the prestige of working for
| the most influential newspaper on earth. When your BATNA is
| getting a 50% pay bump somewhere else then strike away. God
| forbid if the servers crash while reporting on the second hand
| recount in Georgia next month.
| farts_mckensy wrote:
| > Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to
| pull.
|
| I love that the default ideology here is to side with the
| employer. I'm glad that when I am negotiating my salary with my
| employer, there are no comments from the Peanuts gallery.
| wesselbindt wrote:
| > Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to
| pull
|
| I couldn't disagree more. The point of a strike is to
| demonstrate the value of your labor by withholding it.
| Withholding your labor in a slow week would be
| counterproductive. Strikes (just like any effective form of
| protest) are supposed to be inconvenient, so in saying what you
| said, you're really just expressing you don't like strikes.
| Having this blow up in election week is a risk the Times
| knowingly took in not meeting their workers' needs
| sufficiently, and drawing out the negotiations as long as they
| have. The guild is doing the right thing.
| legitster wrote:
| Sure, but you are also appealing for public sentiment. So
| there's a reason why teacher's unions carefully time their
| strikes so they don't clash with important events like SAT
| season.
|
| I'm not arguing they need to pick the slowest week, but
| striking a balance seems pretty reasonable and pretty
| standard for most other unions.
| vundercind wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the wider harm of the NYT _halting
| operations_ for an entire week--which isn 't remotely
| what's happening--would be effectively zero, even during
| the week of a presidential election. What's the problem?
|
| Teachers and health care workers try to be more careful
| because a bunch of vulnerable people (children, patients)
| with little to no say in _anything_ about how their
| respective institutions run are heavily dependent on them.
| A single newspaper, even the NYT, isn 't comparable.
| lolinder wrote:
| Exactly, if anything this strike is timed to do the least
| damage to the general public relative to the amount of
| impact it has on the business. The election has already
| been decided, we're just waiting to tally the votes. Most
| people have already decided if they're going to vote and
| if so who for.
|
| If they had striked last week or the week before they'd
| have been accused of election interference. Striking this
| week hurts the Times because they run the risk of losing
| traffic from people trying to see results, but it doesn't
| impact the results at all. It's the best possible time to
| strike this year.
| duderific wrote:
| Hard disagree. The most important part of the election,
| from a news perspective, will be during/after the count,
| especially if it looks like Harris will win, or it's
| exceedingly close. Maybe this wouldn't be the case pre-
| Trump, when elections were decided relatively quickly,
| and you could assume a peaceful transfer of power.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| I would argue it's a great benefit rather than a problem,
| too.
|
| NYT not publishing sensationalist bullshit? While it's
| just one outlet out of countless many, the world will be
| that much more peaceful for but a short while.
| vundercind wrote:
| I didn't think my original comment needed it, but yes, I
| actually agree the NYT not publishing might be a net
| improvement in the world, not just not-harmful.
| subarctic wrote:
| Sure but the NY times is just one of many news websites and
| even if it went down, people aren't gonna miss it in the
| same way as teachers going on strike
| jedberg wrote:
| The teachers are a little different though. When they go on
| strike, the most directly affected people are the students,
| who they aren't negotiating with. Second hand effects are
| on the parents, who again they aren't negotiating with.
|
| It's only via third hand effects that the other party is
| actually affected, because the parents have to make the
| admin's life hard.
|
| So teachers consider that their first duty is to the
| students. Also they are there to help the students to begin
| with.
| null0pointer wrote:
| When teachers or doctors or nurses strike regular people,
| the general public, suffer. In the case of the NYT tech
| staff nobody suffers except the NYT leadership. Oh no you
| can't read NYT during election week. Whatever, read
| something else.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I don't think there will be any impactful election news for
| at least 48 hours, probably more. People will be nervously
| grasping for assurances that they can't realistically have
| and the outlets will be cranking out content to fill that
| void without actually saying anything. It's pretty much
| just dark entertainment at this point.
|
| Writing such content would be terrible, sounds like a great
| time to strike.
| bee_rider wrote:
| There's not much actual value to society to having stuff
| like the election needle running, it is just a moment-to-
| moment description of the processes of counting votes,
| which have already been cast, so we can "enjoy" the
| stress of Election Day.
|
| But it is probably a huge click-driver for NYT.
|
| This actually is probably the best possible moment for a
| strike, in terms of inconveniencing NYT without harming
| coverage of important events.
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| When public sector workers like teachers go on strike, the
| other side of the negotiating table is ultimately elected
| by the public that's being inconvenienced. That's a
| completely different strategic playing field than a private
| sector strike.
| taurath wrote:
| > Sure, but you are also appealing for public sentiment.
|
| You can't count on public sentiment for anything labor
| oriented in the US - corporations have owned the narrative
| for the last 40 years. The reason teachers unions avoid
| clashing is partially because they care about not effecting
| the kids as much as possible, and partially because they
| are already keeling over with states dropping the public
| school system.
| interactivecode wrote:
| Isn't the whole point of a strike to withhold value?
| WalterBright wrote:
| > which means workers can be terminated only for misconduct or
| another such reason
|
| So the company would be required to retain and pay deadwood,
| low productive people, and staff for obsoleted positions?
| That'll cripple any company over time.
|
| If people demand those working conditions, they should get a
| government job.
| serial_dev wrote:
| > Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to
| pull.
|
| They are so silly, why have the strike when you have the
| greatest leverage, they should wait with their strike until a
| more convenient moment when they could be easier ignored.
| Steuard wrote:
| The impact on election news coverage may not be _that_ serious.
| Quoting from a NYT newsroom person:
|
| "NYT Games and Cooking are BEHIND THE PICKET LINE. Please don't
| play or engage with Games or Cooking content while the strike
| lasts!
|
| News coverage -- including election coverage -- is NOT behind
| the picket line. It's okay to read and share that, though the
| site and app may very well have problems."
|
| (https://bsky.app/profile/maggieastor.bsky.social/post/3la4qg..
| .)
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Do NYT reporters wait for a quiet time to pump sources for
| information?
|
| Time and space is strategic. If you have a unionized workforce
| without a contract or productive negotiations in progress ahead
| of a critical time, you're rolling the dice.
| dakiol wrote:
| > Striking during election week is kind of a crappy move to
| pull
|
| That's the whole point of strikes. If you do them when they are
| less painful, there's no point in doing them. And in this case,
| is not like the public doesn't have dozens of other options to
| consume during election week.
| lupusreal wrote:
| The NYTimes journalists are also unionized; they should sympathy
| strike.
|
| Excellent time for their strike too; they've got a good sense of
| strategy.
| tacticalturtle wrote:
| They can't - they agreed to a no strike clause in their
| contract.
|
| https://www.threads.net/@astor.maggie/post/DB813Z2RNBs
| calibas wrote:
| Why would anybody trust a NYT article about internal drama at the
| NYT? Does HN not understand bias?
|
| Compare the NYT article to other reporting, and you can see the
| difference. There's a few things the NYT forgot to mention, like
| the fact that these negotiations have been drawn out for 2 years
| now. Or this:
|
| "Throughout the bargaining process, Times management has engaged
| in numerous labor law violations, including implementing return-
| to-office mandates without bargaining and attempting to
| intimidate members through interrogations about their strike
| intentions. The NewsGuild of NY has filed unfair labor practice
| charges against The Times on these tactics as well as numerous
| other violations of labor law."
|
| https://nyguild.org/post/new-york-times-tech-guild-walks-off...
|
| The NYT does include a quote blaming everything on the Tech Guild
| though: "We are disappointed that the Tech Guild leadership is
| attempting to jeopardize our journalistic mission at this
| critical time,"
| gruez wrote:
| >"Why would anybody trust a NYT article about internal drama at
| the NYT? Does HN not understand bias?"
|
| >links to a blog post from the union
| lallysingh wrote:
| Descriptions from both sides are now included, what did you
| want here?
| themacguffinman wrote:
| A neutral source from a third party news outlet. Do you
| think bias is a one-dimensional tug of war that cancels
| each other out when combined?
| gklitz wrote:
| Being unbiased yourself does mean listening to both
| sides. What an off request that you would want to hear
| only from one party and then only additionally neutral
| parties but not hear from the other side at all because
| of "bias".
| kergonath wrote:
| Too many people believe that we can balance excessive
| bias with excessive bias in another direction. In
| reality:
|
| - bias cannot be eliminated, merely mitigated;
|
| - the truth is not the average of all opinions;
|
| - some sources are important even if their point of view
| is subjective.
|
| Unfortunately, the whole internet seems to be engulfed in
| a nihilistic tribal war where everything is black or
| white. This kind of argument is a hammer you can use at
| any point when you don't like an argument, because there
| is no objective source. Then, the conversation shifts to
| a discussion of the various point of views and all
| contact with reality is lost.
| IshKebab wrote:
| True but I'm not sure of the relevance here. NYT is
| _clearly_ going to be biased here. This isn 't Carl Sagan
| being "balanced" by flat earthers.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| The point is that you're not going to learn about the
| world by averaging religious texts with flat Eartherism.
| Only once you have a foundation can you start measuring
| how each side is describing events.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Yes and it's a very good point but it's not relevant here
| is it? This isn't a case of one side being sane and the
| other crazy, or even both being crazy. It's two sides of
| a business dispute. Are you really going to draw your
| conclusion based on what just one side says?
| kergonath wrote:
| > Yes and it's a very good point but it's not relevant
| here is it?
|
| I was broadly agreeing with this in the parent post:
|
| > Do you think bias is a one-dimensional tug of war that
| cancels each other out when combined?
|
| I am not saying that we should not seek other sources,
| just that quoting the union on one side of the dispute is
| not better than a reporter paid by the journal on the
| other side. Even worse, because a journal has some
| incentives to keep a reputation for being truthful, while
| communications from a union are purely partisan. (That's
| not some criticism and unions play an important role;
| journalism is just not it)
|
| The point is, two wrong points of view do not magically
| average out to something right. Ideally someone reporting
| with some distance would be better.
| gruez wrote:
| >NYT is clearly going to be biased here
|
| Why? The piece is written by "Katie Robertson", which
| according to her profile is "a reporter covering the
| media industry for The New York Times". That dosen't
| sound like new york times company management to me. She
| (and therefore the article) is at least more distanced
| away from this story than the union itself.
| sfpotter wrote:
| NYT is a publicly traded company. Their first
| responsibility is to their shareholders, not "the truth".
| kergonath wrote:
| It's not that black and white. Over the long term,
| shareholders are better off if the journal can maintain a
| reputation of impartiality, so it would be difficult to
| prove mismanagement in this case. It's like when Apple
| cared more about customer satisfaction and doing the
| right thing than short-term ROI. Sure, shareholder could
| sue, but they would likely lose.
|
| The idea that a company must only do what brings
| shareholder money immediately is a meme that is widely
| propagated by a certain class of people who stand to
| profit from it, but the law does not impose that
| behaviour.
| slg wrote:
| > Do you think bias is a one-dimensional tug of war that
| cancels each other out when combined?
|
| Ironically, the NYT's apparent belief in this exact thing
| is the main reason I'm no longer a subscriber.
| lallysingh wrote:
| So.. journalism? We're in a meta space for that.
| jrflowers wrote:
| Would you prefer neutral coverage from a third party news
| outlet _with_ a unionized workforce or one _without_ a
| unionized workforce?
| bhelkey wrote:
| Just a third party news outlet is probably fine.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| How is this relevant? We expect newspapers to be balanced
| regardless. The issue here is reporting from someone,
| <anyone>, at arm's length.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Personally, I would rather have a single story that
| includes the viewpoints of management and the union along
| with a neutral account of the events.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| This describes newspaper 101... from 20+ years ago. Now
| it's all "the reaction to the reaction to the most
| salacious and inflammatory interpretation"
| GeekyBear wrote:
| I also prefer the old fashioned notion that opinions from
| the writer of the piece are appropriate in stories
| labeled as opinion pieces and editorials, but not in news
| reporting.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| A third party not directly invested in the outcome?
| kaibee wrote:
| There's no such thing.
| pc86 wrote:
| Are you implying every person capable of writing about
| this has a personal investment in the outcome? That seems
| so obviously false that I have to be misunderstanding
| you.
| MBCook wrote:
| Not completely, but you certainly do far better than one
| side reporting on itself.
| joenot443 wrote:
| I found this article to be a pretty balanced perspective -
|
| https://www.axios.com/2024/11/04/nyt-tech-workers-strike-
| ahe...
| casey2 wrote:
| People are claiming they want 3rd party reporting would you
| be happy with NPR? Why do you think any for profit
| newspaper wouldn't be biased against unions? Do you think
| the WSJ has ever published a pro- or even neutral union
| story? Or will you get fluff like someone, in quotes,
| implying the NYT will have to shut it's doors if they are
| forced to pay some of their record profits to their
| employees.
|
| And before you start. The problem affecting article quality
| in reporting ISN'T a direct conflict of interest, it's
| bias. A direct conflict of interest just implies bias.
| pc86 wrote:
| You don't account for bias by having two equally biased
| things from opposite sides of the conversation.
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| Well it is better than having only one side.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| is this really true? With one side we can at least get
| something done and move on with are lives. Two extreme
| perspectives does not lead to finding a friendly middle
| ground, it just leaves us locked in a painful &
| unpleasant stasis.
| pc86 wrote:
| Rather than having two slightly different piles of
| bullshit we should encourage not having any bullshit at
| all.
| gosub100 wrote:
| Don't assume we all trust what we read. Some of us like
| pointing out subterfuge or bias.
| sealeck wrote:
| @dang would it be better to change the link to an article from
| another (reputable) newspaper?
| bloomingkales wrote:
| Oddly, the NYT itself would agree with this gem of a source:
|
| https://nypost.com/2024/09/17/media/ny-times-tech-unions-
| biz...
| donohoe wrote:
| Hello - former NYT employee here, who would have been part of
| the Guild union if I worked there still.
|
| The story is written by a reporter, Katie Robertson, who is
| also part of their own union (Times Guild).
|
| The Times has been pretty good at covering itself imho.
| lolinder wrote:
| > who is also part of their own union (Times Guild).
|
| This doesn't remove the conflict of interest because it's not
| the same union. Those in the other unions may well be more
| sympathetic to the company than to the strikers, especially
| given the timing of the strike.
|
| It's likely interfering with their jobs right now in pursuit
| of a negotiation that they don't stand to gain from.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| If we used the Wall Street Journal, they'd also have a
| conflict interest, because their company competes with the
| New York Times.
|
| I really think this is silly. If there is anything specific
| you don't think the New York Times article is presenting
| fairly, please share that.
| donohoe wrote:
| So maybe I mis-read but...
|
| The comment I was replying to suggests the reporter is pro-
| NYT but you are suggesting that the reporter is pro-Union?
|
| Maybe the reporter did a great job after all :)
| lolinder wrote:
| Nope, I'm saying that them being part of an unrelated
| union does not change the fact that they have a conflict
| of interest in reporting here.
| bb611 wrote:
| NYT's political coverage has been extremely poor this year,
| with very obvious editorial control preventing negative
| coverage of Trump.
|
| It's not obvious to me they have a bias here, but given the
| clear systemic issues in other reporting it's reasonable to
| bring a skeptical view to their own reporting.
| donohoe wrote:
| Yeah, it get why its not obvious. That is why I was
| weighing in. Nothing more.
| xdennis wrote:
| > former NYT employee here
|
| > The Times has been pretty good and covering itself imho.
|
| This is silly. It's like the people who say that the Bible is
| true because the Bible says the Bible is true.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| I don't get this read, or your analogy really. Seems more
| like "former bible editor here; the author of the psalm
| about bible editor unions is also a member of a bible
| editor's union, so is probably not super anti-union.
| They're unlikely to be just presenting the pope's
| narrative."
|
| Like I said, I don't get your analogy.
| sowut wrote:
| "Times management has engaged in numerous labor law violations,
| including implementing return-to-office mandates without
| bargaining"
|
| this is insane. you can't require your workers to come into an
| office anymore? that's against the law?
| jacksnipe wrote:
| They have a union and an agreement with the union. To change
| it, they have to negotiate. That's how unions work.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| They signed a contract with the union and violated the
| contract by sidestepping negotiations with their RTO mandate.
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we've changed from
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/04/business/media/new-york-t...
| to a different source.
| sunjester wrote:
| do we really need them there?
| sega_sai wrote:
| Does it mean that there will be no election needle ? That would
| be disappointing.
| shmatt wrote:
| everything is as usual, including the needle. I asked one of
| the guild leaders myself.
|
| My big question is, how much % of their engineers are
| participating in this? I can't find a single clear answer. For
| all we know there are another 400 engineers not part of this
| activity
|
| As far as I can tell this isn't a Boeing situation where a
| decision is made and all employees are part of it. the NYT
| building is still full of workers today
| jjcm wrote:
| For reference, here's a current job opening for NYT's tech org
| for a senior software developer:
| https://boards.greenhouse.io/thenewyorktimes/jobs/4472655005
|
| Salary is 140-155k USD.
|
| For reference, here's levels.fyi's breakdown of the New York city
| area: https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/new-
| yor...
|
| Median total comp is 185k.
|
| It seems like their total comp for NYT is slightly above the mark
| based on reported salaries: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/the-
| new-york-times-company/...
| Aurornis wrote:
| The article (which is paywalled) says average compensation is
| $190,000.
|
| They also have 600 technologists on staff, which is massively
| higher than comparable news organizations. I think this is the
| real elephant in the room: They're hiring (and therefore
| spending) at a rate that already far outstrips comparable news
| organizations.
| dml2135 wrote:
| What news organizations truly compare to the NYT tech game
| though? As far as I can tell, they are at the top.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Comparing to other "news organizations" might not make
| sense if we're including Wirecutter and the games division
| (e.g. Wordle) on the NYT side. They should be compared to
| other types of media orgs.
|
| Not that NYT hasn't done some interesting innovative
| technical stuff within their journalism.
| davidclark wrote:
| Wordle was famously made and run by one person. How many
| are needed to keep it running now?
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| needs at least a team to remove whatever 5-letter word
| becomes offensive next year!
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| Thank you for surfacing this.
|
| A senior role in NYC for 155K (plus bonus, which they do offer)
| is nothing when you factor in the cost of living.
| simplyluke wrote:
| Read both links. 155 is just salary, TC seems to be on the
| order of $200k for a senior, which is above-median but not
| top of market for NYC.
| gitfan86 wrote:
| The concerns are not around excessive pay but future demands
| related to seniority. 170k sounds reasonable today, but when
| you add in a yearly 5% pay raise AND inflation adjustments AND
| overtime and sick time and retirement contributions it adds up
| to be a lot.
|
| For example there was a cop in Massachusetts who had "retired"
| twice and was getting 280k/year due to the way the union rules
| were set up.
| wormlord wrote:
| In NYC?? Amazon entry level devs in LCOL areas were making that
| much in _base alone_ in 2021.
| sp527 wrote:
| Try redoing your comparison in units of stress per dollar
| warpeggio wrote:
| I wish i was part of a union that could strike in solidarity.
| Wishing them the best and hoping my colleagues see how effective
| this is. Under late stage capitalism, wages are going to keep
| dropping and rent is going to keep climbing: The only solution is
| direct collective action. Talk unions, talk mutual aid, talk
| about working together.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Related :/
|
| _Perplexity CEO offers to replace striking NYT staff with AI_
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/04/perplexity-ceo-offers-to-r...
| buffington wrote:
| I think the NYT should take him up on that offer. Those
| striking can probably pull off a 404media business model
| instead while they watch NYT turn into USA Today, except worse.
| lxgr wrote:
| Did he actually say that?
|
| Because in the article, there's only a tweet of him saying that
| Perplexity is "on standby to help", of which "offering to
| replace striking staff with AI" seems a pretty strong
| mischaracterization.
|
| Update: The headline (but not the URL) was just changed to
| "Perplexity CEO _offers AI company's services_ to replace
| striking NYT staff " (emphasis mine).
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| > ...to help ensure your essential coverage is available to
| all through the election.
|
| That sounds liking replacing striking staff to me, at least
| for the duration of the election. What other services of
| value except LLMs to write articles does Perplexity have to
| offer to the New York Times?
| lxgr wrote:
| > That sounds liking replacing striking staff to me
|
| That's my read too, but they could also e.g. lend them some
| engineers, have them build an election dashboard for them
| etc.
|
| The fact that that would still be crossing the picket line,
| how realistic any of that is, or how genuine the offer, are
| all great questions/observations, but "replace _with AI_ "
| seems like a quite dishonest editorialization in any case.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| If editorialization is ever appropriate, this feels to me
| like the right time. Substantively, Perplexity make LLM
| tools - that's all they advertise on their website and
| what they are known for. Maybe they do have some jack-of-
| all-trade engineers who could turn their hands to web
| development or something, but there are also no doubt
| cleaners working at Perplexity. They aren't offering the
| New York Times help with the toilets!
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| But the article writers at NYT aren't on strike---as
| they're in a diff bargaining unit with a contract and no-
| strike clause.
|
| The only way having AI write articles would help is if it
| freed up working staff to help out with tech stuff---
| which they said they won't do.
| benatkin wrote:
| I don't think it's necessarily either-or. If he had the
| time to personally write the tweet, I think he would be
| willing to lend some engineers to help get them set up
| with their services.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| The full quote is
|
| > Hey AG Sulzberger @nytimes sorry to see this. Perplexity is
| on standby to help ensure your essential coverage is
| available to all through the election. DM me anytime here."
|
| it's absolutely scab behavior
| lxgr wrote:
| Sure, but why add "with AI"?
| miltonlost wrote:
| "Because if a "machine/AI" does the work, it's not
| scabbing!" - executives, lying through their teeth.
|
| They're using AI as smokescreen for anti-labor practices,
| as all AI tech executives are.
| lxgr wrote:
| > "Because if a "machine/AI" does the work, it's not
| scabbing!"
|
| Who is claiming that in this thread, the linked
| Techcrunch article, or the tweet quoted in that article?
|
| And even if the Perplexity CEO in particular, or AI tech
| executives generally were to make that claim elsewhere:
| Misquoting somebody to strengthen a point like that
| immediately and significantly reduces my trust in a
| source.
|
| Also, I'd say that the fact that Techcrunch just _changed
| the headline_ speaks for itself.
| miltonlost wrote:
| Oh, mine wasn't intended to be a literal quote from
| anyone, hence why I said `- executives, lying through
| their teeth.` and didn't name anyone specific.
|
| But this notion is definitely rolling around in the heads
| of these people, even if they won't say so because it's
| bad optics. What a CEO/executive says and what they
| believe and what they do are three very different things.
| You often cannot trust their weasel words.
|
| But as for "the PerplexityAI CEO didn't say "with AI" in
| those words!!!"... how else exactly would an AI company
| help out with striking workers without their product of
| AI? That is an obvious subtext unsaid.
| segasaturn wrote:
| What non-AI solutions does Perplexity have to provide to
| NYT?
| dangerwill wrote:
| You are either being wilfully ignorant or don't know how
| strikes work. Offering to "help" during a strike is scabbing
| by definition
| lxgr wrote:
| I'm not disagreeing with that assertion at all: He's
| clearly offering them _something_ to sabotage the strike.
|
| I'm just pointing out that "offering to help" does equal
| "offering to help with AI". Sure, it's somewhat heavily
| implied by context, but journalistic integrity means making
| it clear what's an implication and what somebody actually
| said.
|
| TechCrunch even seems to agree: They changed the headline
| retroactively.
| __loam wrote:
| Crossing the picket line like this is craven and
| opportunistic.
| derektank wrote:
| Pretty opportunistic to strike right before what is likely
| one of the highest traffic days for the NYT all year too
| mandolingual wrote:
| Yes, workers will take advantage of opportunities for
| their strike action to be more effective, good point.
| devindotcom wrote:
| FYI (and to those concerned) I ended up changing the headline
| after Aravind clarified. Since they are an AI company offering
| AI-powered election-day tracking that would presumably have
| replaced what the striking folks supported, I think it was well
| justified at the outset, but now that he's backtracked would be
| misleading to leave it. Still not great!
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Heh, TC changed the URL and removed the 'with AI' from the
| title midday....
|
| ( _comment below from author_
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42046177)
| downrightmike wrote:
| Regarding RTO:
|
| https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4747313-remote-work-b...
|
| The research backs up all the good things that have come out of
| remote working since at least the pandemic started. Everything is
| great, employees do better work and the employer gets better work
| done. Which was never in doubt if you look at research and
| metrics.
|
| The kerfuffle about remote being bad only has the stated negative
| of something about "culture" according to every company that is
| forcing people off of remote work.
|
| What they don't tell you is
|
| 1: the company wants to shift their tax burden to workers from
| local governments.
|
| 2: It is impacting the Commercial Real-estate that the leadership
| team and board members are getting paid for, on the back end, for
| leasing office spaces back to the company.
|
| Further:
|
| 3: The company is already or will be soon opening a remote team
| office in Hydrabad, so they are already going to lose #1 and #2
| and still not have a decent culture.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| There's other research that suggests remote work isn't as
| effective: https://www.economist.com/finance-and-
| economics/2023/06/28/t...
| flappyeagle wrote:
| Are Indians less deserving of jobs? What are you trying to say
| artursapek wrote:
| Wow, the company that makes it impossible to cancel their
| subscription without an hour long phone call also stiffs their
| workers of cost-of-living wage increases? I'm shocked
| chasd00 wrote:
| You don't get paid while on strike right? This will be
| interesting if it lasts a pay cycle and that direct deposit
| doesn't show up. Rent is expensive.
|
| " Tommy used to work on the docks, union's been on strike He's
| down on his luck, it's tough, so tough" - living on a prayer by
| bon jovi
| spandrew wrote:
| I love all the bellyaching about the NYT missing that election
| coverage money. Perfect time to go on strike. They're only asking
| for a 2.5% salary increase YoY (which is very inflation-y) and
| some WFH days. That's a pretty mild ask.
|
| NYT will be signing on the dotted line within a week I believe
| given the risk to their revenue if they don't cover the second
| Trump-vs-Kamala. The section vs-Woman-Candidate election in a
| decade is going to get a lot of eyeballs.
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