For the first time in four decades, more than a thousand New York Times employees They went on strike this Thursday for 24 hours to demand a salary increase due to the firing of the inflation and famine of life in the Big Apple.
(You may be interested in: US Congress approves a law to shield homosexual marriage)
Some 1,100 journalists and other workers at the temple of world journalism stopped work between midnight Thursday and Friday due to lack of agreement on wages in the new collective agreement, according to the New York NewsGuild newspaper union.
(Read also: Peru: former president Pedro Castillo sends an asylum request to the Mexican government)
Hundreds of people of all ages and statuses gathered Thursday in front of the imposing headquarters of the new york times company, in the west of Manhattan, in a demanding but festive atmosphere. According to NewsGuild, one of the sticking points is management’s refusal to significantly increase wages for two years, in an inflationary national and global context despite the fact that the publicly traded company is financially prosperous.
“Penalize workers”
“The directors of the New York Times celebrate financial achievements while penalizing workers,” says the union in the brochures in which it is pleased that “more than 1,100 employees have stopped work, an unprecedented event in four decades “.
(Do not stop reading: The small country whose economy has grown this year thanks to the war in Ukraine)
“The company does not treat unionized employees very well. We have been without a collective agreement for 20 months, we have worked non-stop during the pandemic, 20 hours a day, including weekends, and without increases” in wages, complained Albert Sun, 34-year-old graphic designer who has worked at the NYT for 11 years.
For his colleague Phoebe Lett, it is necessary to fight to “obtain a minimum wage of 65,000 dollars per year (gross and before taxes)”.
“Dream Job”
“It’s important because the company wants us to work in a city where life is very expensive. I have colleagues who have a second job to support this onewhich is a dream job,” said the 31-year-old podcast producer.
According to the results of the third quarter of 2022 published in November, the company registered a turnover of 547 million dollars compared to 509 million in the same period of 2021, an increase of 7.6% year-on-year.
But quarterly net profit fell 33% in one year from $54 million in 2021 to $36 million today.
In a statement, management recalled that salary negotiations have not failed and that it is “disappointing that (employees) resort to extreme actions even though we are not at a dead end“.
(You may be interested: People of the United States elect an 18-year-old as their mayor)
message with threat
The company reported that it has proposed a general wage increase of “11.5%” in three years from the signing of the new collective agreement.
Though with a veiled message: “NewsGuild’s proposal, which will add more than $100 million to costs, will make it difficult to sustain our investments in journalism.”
With its 1,700 workers, eight million subscribers and some 150 million monthly readers, the NYT, a monument of the left-of-center written press, recovered and adapted to the digital age with its website, its videos and podcasts. The strike should not prevent the publication of the paper on Friday.
An article published in the digital edition specifies that during the break, “non-union newsroom workers will be largely responsible for the production of information”.
(You may be interested in: Video: with a song by Taylor Swift, a teacher calms down students during a shooting)
Some demonstrators do not exclude continuing the strike beyond Friday night, despite the fact that a spokeswoman for the newspaper assured that next Tuesday a new round of negotiations.
AFP
#York #Times #workers #strike