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"The management of the nation’s most elite, center-left news organization, which, in its opinion pages, supports unionization at places like Amazon and..."

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"The management of the nation’s most elite, center-left news organization, which, in its opinion pages, supports unionization at places like Amazon and..."

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"The management of the nation’s most elite, center-left news organization, which, in its opinion pages, supports unionization at places like Amazon and..."

"... endorsed Elizabeth Warren for president in part because she would 'give workers more ability to bargain collectively,' is now telling its impecunious staff to quit clanking their tin cups. The workers want raises that keep up with inflation, and the company is on track for an annual operating profit of more than $300 million...."

Writes Shawn McCreesh in "Just What Did the [New York] Times Walkout Change?" (NY Magazine).

The picketing outside the Times’ Renzo Piano–designed headquarters went on for more than an hour this afternoon. Over a hundred people gathered under the scaffolding on West 40th Street, surrounded by a crush of cameras.

Nikole Hannah-Jones, their star magazine correspondent and the intellectual force behind “The 1619 Project,” stood next to Scabby the giant inflatable rat and spoke into a microphone:

“Let me tell you, I know what it’s like to work at a newspaper and not make enough to pay your bills. I worked two jobs until I was 30 years old. I reported at my local newspaper and then I had to sell mattresses on nights and weekends just to make ends meet. I loved my job, but we shouldn’t have to struggle financially to work at a place like the New York Times, no matter what position we hold.”

Donald McNeil was there, wearing an old union T-shirt and a brown leather coat with a shearling collar. He was ousted from the paper last year, and Hannah-Jones had played a minor role in that, but he’d always been a dedicated union man. He nodded along while she spoke. “I thought she was great,” he told me.

Donald McNeil! Remember his ouster? That came after he uttered the "n-word" on the mention side of the use/mention distinction. Blogged here and here.

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52 Comments on Althouse: "The management of the nation’s most elite, center-left news organization, which, in its opinion pages, supports unionization at places like Amazon and..."

  • tim maguire
    on December 09, 2022 | 05:37 tim maguiresaid :
    "I’m generally inclined to support the workers, even NYT journalists, but across the board raises that keep up with our current inflation is an absurd demand. And I’m not impressed by the profit amassed. There have been a lot of losses over the years, The Times has priorities other than salary if they want to remain solvent, single-year profits or no.

    BTW, “star magazine correspondent and the intellectual force behind “The 1619 Project,” sounds several years out of date. Are some circles so deep in the bubble that the people in it still see the 1619 project as something to brag about?"
  • Quayle
    on December 09, 2022 | 05:44 Quaylesaid :
    "I’ll keep this uncharacteristically short and simple. We’re in a class struggle, and also a generational wealth struggle since the Boomers lived entirely beyond their means and has transferred the debt to their grandchildren.

    All the other noisy social and race apparent-struggles are all squirrels to keep the lower classes and those grandchildren distracted from noticing and deciding to storm the Bastille and Versailles."
  • Christopher B
    on December 09, 2022 | 06:00 Christopher Bsaid :
    "Yawn. Liberals in power hypocritically f'ing over their subordinates? Instapundit and other sites regularly report on wage discrepancies by sex and sexual harassment in any number of supposedly enlightened bastions of liberalism. Why would the NYT be any different?"
  • Howard
    on December 09, 2022 | 06:16 Howardsaid :
    "Do editorial staff set salaries?"
  • RMc
    on December 09, 2022 | 06:19 RMcsaid :
    "This just in: Libs are hypocrites. Film at eleven."
  • rehajm
    on December 09, 2022 | 06:20 rehajmsaid :
    "I must admit, given current dysfunction there’s a part of me rooting for a deep recession to remind people resources are finite.

    Then the rational part recognizes a deep recession will mean yet another 10 trillion spending package from Congress…"
  • rehajm
    on December 09, 2022 | 06:28 rehajmsaid :
    "Times will cave then get ‘bailout’ money in the next spending bill…"
  • RideSpaceMountain
    on December 09, 2022 | 06:28 RideSpaceMountainsaid :
    "@Quayle

    "All the other noisy social and race apparent-struggles are all squirrels to keep the lower classes and those grandchildren distracted from noticing and deciding to storm the Bastille and Versailles."

    They're going to fail. It will happen anyway.

    This country of ours has for long been half free,
    Every state is under DC's tyranny.
    And still both parties are greatly to blame
    For shirking their part in the patriot game.
    They won't mind whacking agents of state
    The feeling is rage, they're way past irate
    And yet at deserters they'll never slip aim
    The rebels who sold out the patriot game
    Where is the young man, this Earth ever taught
    Whose life is less sacred than all the old frauds
    Whose boyhood less lovely, whose vision less vain
    Than the boomers who paid for the patriot game

    "
  • wendybar
    on December 09, 2022 | 06:35 wendybarsaid :
    "Bahahahhahahhahahahahha...Just goes to show, they don't deserve their jobs. They are activists, not journalists. Why does anybody want to be lied to everyday. "
  • Christopher B
    on December 09, 2022 | 06:38 Christopher Bsaid :
    "Howard said...
    Do editorial staff set salaries?


    The people who hire the editorial staff do."
  • PB
    on December 09, 2022 | 06:41 PBsaid :
    "One day? If you're going to strike, mean it and force the company to face shutdown. It's just virtue signaling. They're all overpaid."
  • PB
    on December 09, 2022 | 06:41 PBsaid :
    "One day? If you're going to strike, mean it and force the company to face shutdown. It's just virtue signaling. They're all overpaid."
  • Enigma
    on December 09, 2022 | 06:41 Enigmasaid :
    "The left's recent singular obsession with race, gender, and sexual identities has obscured the core political struggle based on wealth and class. Some racial and ethnic minority groups (e.g., East Asian; Jews) are wealthy on average and traditional feminists have been shown the door, so there's no natural unity with other left groups.

    The oligarchs who own media, to include Jeff Bezos at WP, Bill Gates at MSNBC and Slate, Michael Bloomberg at Bloomberg, and also the owners of the NYT aren't going to truly give away their power or their hegemony. Sure they'll donate to 'worthy causes,' but they won't willingly weaken themselves before they die. Charity and leftist media are sometimes just a sop to the left to avoid focus on the wealth/class distinction. The wealthy win if allowed to create monopolies, the wealthy win if perceived as friendly to the left. The wealthy became wealthy because they are often quite clever.

    In conjunction with Sinema's defection from the D Party today, watch both parties rotate into new ideological strongholds. The left has no clear path back to being a working class stronghold, as they are beholden to the greens, the oligarchs, bureaucracies, and non-working dependent class. Will the R Party move further toward workers, as they have a clear shot at dramatically increasing their working class support? Strange times indeed."
  • Temujin
    on December 09, 2022 | 07:03 Temujinsaid :
    ""Nikole Hannah-Jones, their star magazine correspondent and the intellectual force behind “The 1619 Project,” stood next to Scabby the giant inflatable rat and spoke into a microphone:
    “Let me tell you, I know what it’s like to work at a newspaper and not make enough to pay your bills. I worked two jobs until I was 30 years old."


    She went on. You have to learn the grift, just like I did. Create something that has to do with race. And it doesn't matter what it is, how factual it is. What matters is that you just stand beside it...hard. And don't let up. Hell, you can create an entire industry on the fiction if you work it right.

    Anyway, I head some interviews with these employees. Ugh. As bad an intellectual gathering as I thought the Times employee team would be...it's worse than that. One guy admitted that they're fighting to not have to go into the office regularly "for safety sake, being that we're still in a pandemic." Spoken like a New Yorker. Other's wanted more money. Natch. Others...just didn't know. They just were doing their union thing making noise.

    Oh to be an activist. I guess they could look for work elsewhere. I know Bari Weiss is looking for a few good actual journalists. Perhaps...nah. They couldn't cut it."
  • Rusty
    on December 09, 2022 | 07:05 Rustysaid :
    "I'm told they can learn to code."
  • narciso
    on December 09, 2022 | 07:19 narcisosaid :
    "Carlos slim should just pony up more cash"
  • hombre
    on December 09, 2022 | 07:20 hombresaid :
    ""Center left?" LOL!"
  • rhhardin
    on December 09, 2022 | 07:27 rhhardinsaid :
    "The price of everything rises after a hurricane, unless there are price gouging laws in which case there's nothing for sale at all. If you give raises to afford $20 a bag ice, then the price of ice has to go higher yet because there isn't that much ice to be had and the price has to ration it.

    Today it's not a money-printing inflation but a shortage inflation, with price rationing reduced supplies. So long as wages don't "keep up," it's under control. Otherwise you get an actual inflation spiral out of a mere shortage.

    When people's wages are falling behind this inflation, that's a feature not a bug. Victimhood is the wrong category. A suck-it-up category is correct."
  • Darkisland
    on December 09, 2022 | 07:29 Darkislandsaid :
    "Elon should say he is thinking of buying the NYT.

    I know. It is privately owned. But offered enough money, the family would sell.

    And it would not matter if he did buy it. The entertainment value of saying he will would be enormous.

    John Henry "
  • retail lawyer
    on December 09, 2022 | 07:56 retail lawyersaid :
    "The NYT employees should go somewhere where their talent and hard work are recognized and rewarded. And bravery, too. Its just not safe there anymore what with Tom Cotton still free to speak up."
  • Bob Boyd
    on December 09, 2022 | 08:29 Bob Boydsaid :
    "Donald McNeil was there, wearing an old union T-shirt and a brown leather coat with a shearling collar.

    Cosplay.

    The "workers" picketed for more than an hour! Shocking! I feel like I just re-read Germinal. I'm literally shaking.
    "
  • Lurker21
    on December 09, 2022 | 08:45 Lurker21said :
    "Does no one remember Donald McNeil? Donald Sterling? Donald Rumsfeld?

    The moving finger writes and, having writ, moves on.

    The Sulzbergers aren't going to sell. Without the paper, what are they? They got millions from Carlos Slim without giving up control. Why give it up now and become like the Chandlers in LA? Or the McCormicks or Fields from Chicago? Just a bunch of squabbling unknowns and has-beens."
  • Gusty Winds
    on December 09, 2022 | 08:49 Gusty Windssaid :
    ""Center-Left"

    Everything is a clown show. "
  • Aggie
    on December 09, 2022 | 08:49 Aggiesaid :
    "Excuse me, but what exactly was a one-day walkout supposed to change, other than make its participants feel good and virtuous about themselves?"
  • zipity
    on December 09, 2022 | 09:09 zipitysaid :
    "

    "Center-Left"

    STOP, you're killing me... *snort*"
  • Robert Cook
    on December 09, 2022 | 09:22 Robert Cooksaid :
    ""I’m generally inclined to support the workers, even NYT journalists, but across the board raises that keep up with our current inflation is an absurd demand."

    Why? If one's salary is not increased yearly to at least match the rate of inflation, one's salary is effectively shrinking year to year. Rather than being "absurd," the demand seems fair, rational, and the least that employers owe their employees.

    I understand small employers may not be able to meet this standard, but small employers are not typically unionized. Large employers all too often reward top management with handsome bonuses and other incentives each year even when not warranted by performance, or when they claim they cannot afford to increase salaries, (e.g., when the American people bailed out the Wall Street banks/investment firms teetering on collapse in 2008/2009, those firms gave millions in bonuses to their management)."
  • Robert Cook
    on December 09, 2022 | 09:25 Robert Cooksaid :
    ""This just in: Libs are hypocrites. Film at eleven."

    Why would you expect them to be different than conservatives? They're all people. (And we'll all eventually be Soylent Green for the worms.)"
  • Robert Cook
    on December 09, 2022 | 09:28 Robert Cooksaid :
    ""'Howard said...
    Do editorial staff set salaries?'

    "The people who hire the editorial staff do."


    So then: NO."
  • Wince
    on December 09, 2022 | 09:30 Wincesaid :
    "What do they make now and how much do they want?"
  • Robert Cook
    on December 09, 2022 | 09:35 Robert Cooksaid :
    ""Will the R Party move further toward workers, as they have a clear shot at dramatically increasing their working class support?"

    They will pretend to, while continuing their fealty to the wealthy whom they have always served."
  • Robert Cook
    on December 09, 2022 | 09:39 Robert Cooksaid :
    "'Center-Left'

    "STOP, you're killing me... *snort*"


    Tell me about it, right? Who really believes the NY TIMES is or ever has been "left?""
  • Joe Smith
    on December 09, 2022 | 09:54 Joe Smithsaid :
    "Some people have a goal in life of what they want to do for a living, and others just fall into a career.

    I think most people who work at newspapers fall into the former.

    Newspapers have never paid well.

    I decided against a career that I had as a college major, partly because up until about twenty years ago the pay was notoriously awful.

    I guess that makes me smarter than the people at the NYT, but we already knew that..."
  • Joe Smith
    on December 09, 2022 | 09:56 Joe Smithsaid :
    "'I’m generally inclined to support the workers, even NYT journalists...'

    Workers of the world, untie!

    Speaking of Untie and the NYT; Wordle in 2 today, so suck it : )"
  • Jefferson's Revenge
    on December 09, 2022 | 10:18 Jefferson's Revengesaid :
    "In relation to salaries and inflation, if someone in their personal, political and professional life supports policies that create inflation, isn't it a bit hypocritical to then complain about how inflation is negatively affecting your income? Maybe they just need a lesson in logic or cause and effect."
  • Big Mike
    on December 09, 2022 | 10:22 Big Mikesaid :
    "“Let me tell you, I know what it’s like to work at a newspaper and not make enough to pay your bills. I worked two jobs until I was 30 years old. I reported at my local newspaper and then I had to sell mattresses on nights and weekends just to make ends meet. I loved my job, but we shouldn’t have to struggle financially to work at a place like the New York Times, no matter what position we hold.”

    Actually, they should have to struggle financially. I can’t think of any other way for them to learn to appreciate the struggles that ordinary citizens go through daily. Maybe if they have to decide whether they can afford things they’ll better appreciate the plight of a single mother when her weeping kids tell her they’re still hungry after their meager supper, but thanks to Joe Biden’s inflation she’s spent all her money and she won’t be able to get more groceries until payday, which is Friday and a week away. Maybe the Times writers will be better able to contemplate the plight of electricians, and plumbers, and transit workers, and trash collectors, and grocery clerks, and, yeah, clerks in mattress stores if they have to stretch their salaries a bit.

    Ah, who am I kidding? Deplorables exist to be deplored."
  • Michael K
    on December 09, 2022 | 10:31 Michael Ksaid :
    "
    Blogger Robert Cook said...

    'Center-Left'

    "STOP, you're killing me... *snort*"

    Tell me about it, right? Who really believes the NY TIMES is or ever has been "left?"


    Cook, of course, is to the left of Lenin. I was about to object to "center left" too."
  • Yancey Ward
    on December 09, 2022 | 10:32 Yancey Wardsaid :
    "LOL! If they were really serious, it wouldn't have been a 1 day walkout, it would have been a real strike."
  • Darkisland
    on December 09, 2022 | 10:54 Darkislandsaid :
    "Never cared much for Top Gear or Grand Tour but for some reason I started watching (Jeremy) Clarkson's Farm on Amazon the other day. Binged the whole series and loved it.

    Nikole should watch it. Kaleb, Clarkson's co-star and farm assistant talks about his work day raising cows, chickens and a pig on his farm, working another farm for hire and then working for Clarkson.

    In the final episode, Clarkson totes up his profit and loss for the year to find that he has made $144 pounds profit. He also talks about how he basically works 8 full-time jobs (The farm, 2 newspaper columns, the farm show, who wants to be a millionaire and a couple other things)

    In fairness, while he did not make any money on the farm, Amazon paid him a boodle to make a show about the farm, so there is that. Perhaps that is the secret to making a profit from a farm.

    I did not hear any whining from Kaleb or Jeremy about how unfair life is.

    I think IU convinced my grandson to watch it by telling him Clarkson ploughs the fields with a Lamborghini. (I didn't tell him it was a Lambo tractor and not a Countach)

    John Henry"
  • JK Brown
    on December 09, 2022 | 10:55 JK Brownsaid :
    "Perhaps we are entering the post-capitalistic age? But, oops, without capitalism, the material economy has its revenge. People need things, but opinions and poorly substantiated "news" is everywhere.

    Coincidentally, I just listen to C.S. Lewis advocating reading the "old books" vice the more recent often slanted opinions of more recent authors. We saw that with Trump, you had to go to the original video lest the NY Times, et al, give you fake news of what he said.
    https://youtu.be/jFHQDIE7CSw


    In the precapitalistic ages writing was an unremunerative art. Blacksmiths and shoemakers could make a living, but authors could not. Writing was a liberal art, a hobby, but not a profession. It was a noble pursuit of wealthy people, of kings, grandees and statesmen, of patricians and other gentlemen of independent means. It was practiced in spare time by bishops and monks, university teachers and soldiers. The penniless man whom an irresistible impulse prompted to write had first to secure some source of revenue other than authorship.

    Mises, Ludwig von (1956). The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality "
  • Big Mike
    on December 09, 2022 | 10:57 Big Mikesaid :
    "Yeah, Quayle, it’s all the fault is us Boomers. Everything. Nobody from subsequent generations ever screwed up anything, ever.

    But tell me, friend. Is there ever going come a time when you stop regurgitating the bullshit you’ve swallowed? The rhetorical trick you’ve fallen for is this. The media single out some people who are a couple sigma from the norm and then insist that they are representative of an entire class or an entire generation. Of course there were people who lived beyond their means along the Boomers — as there are among Gen-X and the Millennials and Gen-Z. But where I live out here with my fellow Deplorables in the Shenandoah Valley most old timers live from one Social Security check and pension payment to the next. And every months those checks buy less and less. Biden bragged about how large the Social Security COLA was, but pensions are fixed and the COLA doesn’t begin to cover the increases in the cost of groceries."
  • PM
    on December 09, 2022 | 12:13 PMsaid :
    "The NYT journos need more money for all the extra work they'll have to do now that Twitter is not their handy go-to source for 'facts'."
  • BUMBLE BEE
    on December 09, 2022 | 12:22 BUMBLE BEEsaid :
    "Center Left?
    Hahahahahahahaha! That's one for Babylon Bee or The Onion."
  • JAORE
    on December 09, 2022 | 12:48 JAOREsaid :
    "A one hour strike?

    Sh*t just got real."
  • Big Mike
    on December 09, 2022 | 12:50 Big Mikesaid :
    "There was a walkout at the Times? Did anyone notice?"
  • First Tenor
    on December 09, 2022 | 12:55 First Tenorsaid :
    "The NYT journalists' union is the New York Newspaper Guild. It is an affiliate of the Communication Workers of America. It is a very difficult union for management to negotiate with. "
  • Christopher B
    on December 09, 2022 | 13:20 Christopher Bsaid :
    "Robert Cook said...
    "'Howard said...
    Do editorial staff set salaries?'
    "The people who hire the editorial staff do."

    So then: NO.


    Dude, it might be a convenient fiction that the editorial pages and the news pages operate independently but neither has ever claimed to operate independently of the people signing paychecks. I expect you to take back every disparagement you've thrown at Roger Ailes and Fox News Corp."
  • Achilles
    on December 09, 2022 | 13:28 Achillessaid :
    "narciso said...
    Carlos slim should just pony up more cash

    What would he get for that investment?

    The appearance of credibility?

    Democrat voters and NYT's readers specifically are stupid people.

    Credibility is completely unnecessary as long as the NYT's makes it's readers feel superior to Republican voters and specifically Trump supporters.

    Never Trumpers still glom on to the media narratives for the same reason."
  • Mike
    on December 09, 2022 | 14:36 Mikesaid :
    "Clinking their tin cups? Now that's not the implement I envision an NYT, WaPo or LA Times reporter holding in their hand. Based on those reporters' output , a stable cleaning shovel is both the more anppropriate and more often used implement.

    Of course from their point of view the pity of it all is that there are fewer and fewer positions for those shovelers. But they keep shoveling it--bless their hearts. "
  • Zavier Onasses
    on December 09, 2022 | 15:35 Zavier Onassessaid :
    "“Let me tell you, I know what it’s like to work at a newspaper and not make enough to pay your bills. I worked two jobs until I was 30 years old. I reported at my local newspaper and then I had to sell mattresses on nights and weekends just to make ends meet."

    How are you different from anyone who sells mattresses for a living and writes a blog to stroke his ego. You should pay the NYT for the exposure. All you have to sell is your opinion, and everybody already has one of those. Be grateful for what they pay you. Don't give up your night job,"
  • Sebastian
    on December 09, 2022 | 16:09 Sebastiansaid :
    ""Donald McNeil was there"

    Beta male doing his beta thing?

    Anyway, if this keeps up, where's Althouse gonna get her blog material?

    How are progs going to figure out the party line?"
  • Mikey NTH
    on December 09, 2022 | 17:25 Mikey NTHsaid :
    "Back on the mid-90's Detroit Newspapers had a strike
    Lovely to watch the Freep, friend of union labor, twist themselves to justify crushing the unions like the return of Henry Clay Frick."
  • Achilles
    on December 09, 2022 | 17:41 Achillessaid :
    "The real problem for the NYT writers is they don't produce any real value that the company can leverage to make a profit.

    They are worthless. Hard to really ask for more money in their situation."

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