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Comment by marricks | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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Didn't Wirecutter once strike during Black Friday?

https://nypost.com/2021/11/25/workers-at-new-york-times-wire...

>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.

> 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."

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.

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.

> "sign here to make this problem go away"

They been saying that about 2.5 years now. They have clear demands that the management can just accept.

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.

Management are already hurt by the formation of the union, and not agreeing to a contract is their way of attempting to hurt the union back.

I'd agree with you if the situation suggested management were acting in good faith, but 6+ months to negotiate is them either not taking the union seriously or trying to wear them down and make union leadership look ineffective to members.

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