New York Times tech employees on strike discuss impact on election coverage: 'No contract, no needle'

NEW YORK-The New York Times tech worker strike entered its second day on Tuesday with hundreds of staffers picketing and chanting for a fair contract, leaving questions about how the country's largest newspaper would be able to digitally cover the most important news day of the year.

"We would like to get back to work, but the company is not really delivering a contract for us that fairly represents the work that we do every election," Times engineer and Tech Guild member Jeff Sisson told Fox News Digital outside the building's headquarters on Tuesday.

The Tech Guild's 600 members, who control the back-end systems that power the paper's extensive digital operations, went on strike at midnight Monday when they failed to reach a contract agreement.

Multiple union members told Fox News Digital that they have been working on a deal with Times leadership for over two years, and it's unclear what the paper's website will look like on election night as Americans choose either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris for president. 

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Amid the strike, the Times' well-known election needle that indicates a candidate's chances of winning based on current numbers and future projections might not be published to the site, as the tech team is responsible for the necessary infrastructure and data.

On Tuesday night, the NewsGuild union posted to X: "No contract, no needle." Chief political analyst Nate Cohn suggested earlier in the day that no needle was a possibility either.

Goran Svorcan-Merola, a Times senior software engineer and member of the Tech Guild's bargaining committee, said he and his fellow union members greatly wanted to reach a deal before the election. 

"We gave management an offer back on Sunday, and we hadn't heard from them and haven't heard from them since," he said. "We're hoping they come back to the table, but nothing yet. We have serious concerns with their latest counter to us."

"I'm sure they're talking to someone, but it's not us," he added. 

Members also told Fox News Digital that they will continue to strike past election day until an agreement is made, but Svorcan-Merola reiterated that they are available to bargain at any moment. 

Despite the election week deadline, Svorcan-Merola said they gave management ample time to reach an agreement ahead of this week and that the decision to strike isn't one they take lightly. 

"We wanted to give management more time to reach a deal. But, the election is a time when our members are extremely stressed," he said. "We want to show that this is a big night for our labor, this is a big night for our work and if you want us there, you have to give us a fair deal."

Sisson, a Times principal engineer for storytelling and publishing, said striking is "not by choice," adding he isn't sure what the website will look like on election night. 

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"That's a great mystery," he said. "No one knows. I think that's a risk that me and my coworkers are very cognizant of. As I said, we didn't want things to get to this point. I can't quite predict what's going to happen."

But, it could be business as usual, Sisson said. 

"I think that the mystery is part of the risk here," he said. "This is not how we're used to running an election. I've worked here and covered, I think, three presidential elections. Suffice to say, this is not a typical election for us, and we're very aware of that."

Sisson said he and his colleagues are asking for fair pay, flexibility around remote work and protection from termination with a "just cause" clause that News Guild members have in their deal.

"Some of this indicates that they think that they can work without us, but we're all about to find out exactly what that looks like on the night of the election, which is one of the biggest nights of the year as far as The New York Times' coverage goes," he said. 

Stacy Cowley, a Times business reporter, said the Tech Guild is fighting for many of the protections that the News Guild has been afforded for generations. 

"The Tech Guild has been fighting for that for two-and-a-half years and the company has for two-and-a-half years refused to give them the exact same job protections that we always had in our contract," she said. "That's really unconscionable."

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Cowley said their strike is not about smaller demands, which the Times has touted in its public comment. 

"I also find it an incredibly cynical and bad faith point on management's part that they keep talking about things like pet bereavement leave, unscented products in the washroom," she said, referring to some reported quirky demands by Guild members that went beyond typical asks like higher pay. "Those were things that were very briefly on the table, consumed about five minutes of bargaining time, and they've been withdrawn and off the table for well over a year. They keep hammering on those points to distract from the things they don't want to talk about."

Cowley also called out what she said were "hypocritical" stances from Times management given the pro-union stance the paper has historically taken in its news coverage and editorials.

"I find it really sad that they let it get to this point, because again, our tech folks took their strike authorization vote on September 10. They deliberately did it two months ahead of time with the idea that that would give time to actually get a deal done," she said.

"A lot of my colleagues are pretty heartbroken to be out here doing this today," she added. "I mean a lot of our folks have spent years building systems, building graphics, building the tools for today. They were really excited to be in the newsroom doing work on election day."

A New York Times spokesperson gave Fox News Digital the same statement as a day earlier expressing disappointment with the strike's timing.

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"We look forward to continuing to work with the Tech Guild to reach a fair contract that takes into account that they are already among the highest paid individual contributors in the Company and journalism is our top priority," the spokesperson said. "We're in one of the most consequential periods of coverage for our readers and have robust plans in place to ensure that we are able to fulfill our mission and serve our readers.

"While we respect the union's right to engage in protected actions, we're disappointed that colleagues would strike at this time, which is both unnecessary and at odds with our mission."