Don’t worry about Harris versus Trump. Here’s something that could really impact election night — or not.
Due to a personnel conflict New York Times readers may not have the famous election needle to rely on.
Dozens of them Times’ Tech Guild – the union representing software engineers, data scientists and project managers – chose the TimesOffices in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday protested the more than two-year demand for a union contract.
The threat to the Times is real: if the union were to choose to strike on election day, as its more than 600 members overwhelmingly approved last month, it risks turning the situation upside down. Times’ election coverage, which may take the Gray Lady completely offline.
A spokesperson for the newspaper told the Daily Beast that the union “threatening a strike at this time feels both unnecessary and contrary to our mission.”
“It’s really the company that’s endangering their (and) our reputation, and the company that’s endangering the New York Times brand,” said Kathy Zhang, senior manager of the New York Times. Times‘ audience team and the chairman of the Tech Guild.
The scene outside the TimesThe building reflected the one-day strike the editors’ union held in 2022, with red-shirted staffers reprimanding the company for the lengthy negotiations. Some staffers held up and wore mock variations of Connections categories Times headlines on their shirts, while others blew megaphones, daring the company to risk the union’s wrath.
“Stress test this!” workers shouted as they protested, citing the simulations the company has been running to prepare its systems for election traffic.
The Guild consists of approximately 600 employees across the newsroom, representing those who work on the back-end systems that determine how people access the newsroom. Times. While that also means ensuring that their in-house article writing software Scoop (as announced in the 2022 publication) She said) works and that readers receive their push notifications, some members are also responsible for ensuring that the newspaper’s various games (hello, Wordle and Connections), apps and website work. This includes the famous Election Needle, a model introduced in 2016 that predicts which candidate will win an election.
The unit was founded in 2022 and has been trying to win a contract since July of that year, dealing with management on everything from return to office policies; Just Cause protections, which ensure that employees must go through a process before being fired and cannot be let go without cause; and an overall wage increase of 1 percent, which the unit believes is too low.
The process did not go smoothly: the unit filed multiple claims with the National Labor Relations Board, including allegations of the… Times last week in which members were surveyed about how they felt about a strike, according to Axios. (The Times denied the claims.)
It receives support from the Times’ editorial guild, which struck a deal with the newspaper after more than two years of negotiations and a one-day strike, and its union Wirecutter, which went on strike for four days during the 2021 Black Friday season before winning a contract the following month.
“We are very aware of the constant work they have to do to adjust things, adjust things and fix things,” Times business reporter Stacy Crowley told the Daily Beast on the sidelines of Wednesday’s meeting. “I’ve talked to a number of reporters on Election Day coverage who are working on the Needle and other very technical (heavy) projects. They don’t think it will go well without the Tech Guild.”
If the unit goes on strike, several members of the guild say, the guild will be at risk Times‘platforms could be called out if a tech snafu pops up with no one able to fix it. Sarah Duncan, one Times software engineer, said outdated news might appear on the website Times‘ website, giving readers the wrong impression of a nearby election that could change the course of the country.
“Every election something goes wrong,” Duncan said. “It’s technical staff staying up until 2 a.m. – unpaid extra hours – to fix it. That is what we rely on. That’s what we’ve been relying on for years, and all these elections in the past, that these solutions will happen.”
There is precedent for the Times‘Election manifestos fail at important moments of an election. During the 2022 midterm elections, the needle was removed for about an hour during the 8 p.m. afternoon due to a coding error with the designation Louisiana Democratic, chief political analyst Nate Cohn wrote on Twitter at the time. According to the newspaper, the needle returned at 9:30 p.m The hill.
But if something else goes wrong when the unit goes on strike, project manager Michelle Esposito told the Daily Beast, it won’t be nearly as easy to fix.
“If there’s no one to fix it, it’s just going to stay broken,” Esposito said. “And that’s what we warned them about: give us a fair deal so that we can be there to step in and correct and fix things if necessary.”
Zhang, chairman of the unit, said the company has come to the bargaining table more since the strike vote in September, but only because the company recognizes the threat of an election night gone wrong. If a strike does occur – the metaphorical needle indicating its likelihood is unclear – it will Times’ blame for every hit on their brand, she said.
“We really wonder if that is the case The New York Times as an institution values democracy the way they say they do,” Zhang said.
A spokesperson for the New York Times Company told the Daily Beast: “We look forward to continuing to work with Tech Guild to reach a fair contract that takes into account the fact that they are already among the highest-paid individual contributors belong within the company and that journalism is our top priority. priority.
“We are in one of the most transformative reporting periods for our readers. There is no outlet that provides the depth of The Times’s reporting and analysis — something that will be even more important to our readers and the country if, as in 2020, the election does not produce a clear result until days or weeks after Election Day.
We have robust plans to ensure we can fulfill our mission and serve our readers.
“The timing of the election deadline is arbitrary and was a decision made unilaterally by the Tech Guild leadership. While we respect the union’s right to engage in protected action, threatening a strike at this time feels both unnecessary and inconsistent with our mission.”
