Times Tech Guild Mission Statement

The New York Times has been one of the most important institutions in American journalism for nearly 170 years. We are a group of employees who build its products, inclusive of engineering, data, design, product and project management. We believe that The Times will be a stronger force for seeking truth and helping people understand the world by improving its workplace culture for all of its staff. To better express and defend our rights as workers, we have chosen to organize with the NewsGuild of New York, which already represents our editorial colleagues.

We are responsible for building and maintaining software that powers The Times and makes its world-changing journalism accessible to readers. We bring our considerable experience to building publishing systems, ensuring site security and reliability, analyzing data, and designing best-in-class experiences for readers around the world. The products we are proud to build are key drivers to the company’s success.

The company has indicated that it is interested in being a better, more equitable place to work. We strongly welcome these steps forward and we want to cement this progress into a consistently applied, enforceable and transparent contract. As tech workers, we currently lack transparency around compensation, but we know that there are pay discrepancies among people on the same team with the same title. We are at-will employees, and have no legal protection from being fired without warning or explanation. Opaque promotion processes that change frequently without worker input make career growth frustrating and difficult, often driving talented staff to leave The Times to grow elsewhere. There are unevenly applied rules related to on-call expectations, which require workers to provide significant unpaid overtime hours. And though there is company-wide conversation about the importance of diversity, the product organization remains unrepresentative, and diversity and inclusion work often remains excluded from official career ladders. Without a union, we have no access to the data or bargaining rights we need to be able to meaningfully address these issues. 

We work at The Times because we believe deeply in the mission of the company. We believe that protecting the working conditions of employees is critical to the continued success of the mission. Collective bargaining is our way to ensure that we will be able to build The Times’ world class digital products and platforms in a workplace that is more equitable, healthy, and just. We ask that management recognize the NewsGuild of New York as our bargaining representative and begin negotiating amicably and in good faith.

The Organizing Committee:
Minerva Archer, Romina Barrett, Ray Berger, Veronique Brossier, Mike Buzzetti, Andrew Canaday, Bon Champion, Matt Clawson, Kevin Cooper, A. Vicki Crosson, John Cruickshank, Shay Culpepper, Angelique De Castro, Sarah Duncan, Martha Edwards, Kika Gilbert, Guy Grigsby, Angela Guo, Benjamin Harnett, Kait Hoehne, Meghan Hurlburt, Yuchen Jin, Kentaro Kaji, Jennifer Kanjana, Angie Kim, Joseph Kohlmann, Ryan Lakritz, Katie Leavitt, Rachel Lederer, Daniel Lim, Moustafa Makboul, Deeksha Mehta, Shane Moore, Izza Nadeem, Dylan Nugent, Taylor Poulos, Jeff Registre, Michael Reifman, Manny Reynoso, Nozlee Samadzadeh, Sierra Saitta, Rory Sawyer, Christina Schnabel, AJ Schuster, Christopher Shea, Jeff Sisson, Joel Stillman, Olov Sundström, Goran Svorcan-Merola, Riley Sykes, Nathan Taylor, Jeremiah Via, Dick Ward, Paul Yorke, Kathy Zhang & Jimmy Zheng