New York Times tech workers to strike over return-to-office rules
Tech workers at the New York Times plan to strike for half a day on Monday, accusing the publisher of attempting to unilaterally force them back to the office.
Nah, I get where you're at, but this is a bureaucratic nonsense.
My supervisor used to be able to approve my remote work. He no longer can, HR has to. HR is unilaterally denying requests.
So, when I get an offer, it's straight to my boss in person, thank him for the position, apologize for the fact that I am about to leave without notice and hope he gets why, appologize for it negatively affecting his operation, and suggest he tells HR what they've caused.
Swing by HR, request to work remotely. Get denied. Tell them to go fuck themselves and walk out.
Getting staff to leave voluntarily (and thus without severance or unemployment) is an intended feature.
Beats putting up with their shit. Move the fuck on
You only end up with a brain drain. The good workers leave first because they get the best offers elsewhere.
My tech company tried this. And they lost committed people with decades of experience to jobs that offered remote work.
They offered a hybrid schedule to everyone remaining in less than a year, and increased several other benefits. Some still left, but they managed to stave off a mass exodus. Your company can play chicken all they want, but "at will" goes both ways.
I am the only IT person at an institution. Everyone is going back to the office.
I am fighting tooth and nail get remote work back. It's failing.
I'm gonna quit with no notice and legitimately send them a "fuck you" email when I leave.
Get your new position first. The only FU email to send is they offered me more and work from home. I wish you luck in finding a good replacement and thank you for the opportunities this role gave me. And then stay silent. Any requests for help are met with an IC quote with a ridiculous hourly rate.
This. Don’t burn your bridges! You never know who knows who.
IC? Insane Clown? Don't you need to form a posse before you're allowed to quote those professionally?
Do not send a rude letter nor in fact say anything rude. It is fine to be honest but be professional. You never know where the People that read your note shall end up and in five Years they may be reviewing you for a position and the note may affect their decision.
Burning bridges may seem cathartic at the time but they are unlikely to lead to anything positive.
Quiet quit. Look for a second job. When they fire / lay you off then apply for unemployment and hit their metrics.
This is just a strategy to try and get you to do exactly what you're doing - voluntarily leaving in a way that leaves no stain on their employment records.
For the record voluntary terminations are absolutely a metric that companies closely follow. When I was in HR I often received just as much scrutiny if not more on voluntary terms than involuntary.
Revenge is a dish best served cold
-old Klingon provern
revenge is cucumber soup
I got to quit an incredibly toxic insurance job without notice. I got a better job and wrote a "fuck you" notice letter, delivered it in person, then got to watch the bosses read it and panic as I packed up my cubicle. Other employees in the department asked why I was quitting and I said that the company sucks and that our department gets paid the least despite doing the most intense work and being under the most pressure. I said I felt like I was working for villains because all management cared about was profit. I went to Denny's afterwards for a job well quit.
One of the other employees ended up being my neighbor when I bought my house, and she told me a bunch of people quit right after I did and that the department I was in is pretty much empty now.
The feeling of quitting like that is incredible. I've never felt that way before or since. I don't go out of my way to fuck over people who have mistreated me, but that job fuckin deserved it. Too bad the company is a nation-wide company, so it can't go out of business easily. At least I was able to mess up one location for a bit lol.
Good luck! I hope to see a quick win
The NYT tech team has made some of the coolest websites I've seen. I wish them luck in their pursuit of pajama pants.
Half a day? That doesn't sound all that effective.
Start small and escalate. Maybe in a month they'll be on strike full time, sticking gum in locks and deflating tires.
No kidding. It's effectively meaningless posturing. At worst the company will dock them half a sick day and tell them to get back to work. There's no risk to them doing this, and there's no incentive for the company to change their policy based on this. They couldn't even do a full day. This is just a long lunch. The only way they could have made it more meaningless is by staggering their strike times to ensure coverage.
The company's just gonna say "Cool. Is that all you've got? Are you done with your tantrum? Great, now come back to the office like we asked."
Newspapers have a very quick turnaround time.
This will get the people above them sweating.
They'll burn through a lot of their "no time limit" news in a day.
But yeah it's good to start small if you're not trying to actively damage the paper.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Oct 30 (Reuters) - Tech workers at the New York Times (NYT.N) plan to strike for half a day on Monday, accusing the publisher of attempting to unilaterally force them back to the office.
ET and the nearly 700 workers will hold demonstrations on Zoom and outside the company's headquarters in Manhattan, where some will wear Halloween costumes, said the Times Tech Guild (TTG).
The New York Times issued its return-to-office policy before the tech guild was recognized early last year, when workers voted 404-88 to join the NewsGuild of New York, making TTG the largest tech union in the U.S. with bargaining rights.
"The Times is now not only refusing to recognize our rights to bargain on return-to-office but is now going a step further and using it as a tactic to intimidate us," said Kathy Zhang, unit chair for the guild that includes software engineers and data analysts.
The spokesperson also said the U.S. National Labor Relations Board had not ruled against its approach, after a Bloomberg News report said the agency's prosecutors had concluded that the company violated federal law by unilaterally implementing a return-to-office plan and failing to negotiate with the union over it.
Without a settlement, a regional director of the agency will issue a complaint against the Times, the report said, citing a statement from the board's spokesperson.
The original article contains 279 words, the summary contains 224 words. Saved 20%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Can someone post the nyt article on this??
Unlikely to be successful but good luck.
You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
Michael Scott
