NY Times Wirecutter Writers Planning Strike Around Black Friday

Unionized journalists at the New York Times Co.’s NYT Wirecutter product review unit are planning to go on strike around Black Friday, which is the website’s peak traffic period.

What Happened: The NewsGuild union represents roughly 1,300 editorial and business workers at the Times. According to a Bloomberg report, more than 90% of Wirecutter union members voted for a work stoppage in late November that will last one or more days.

The union members stated their planned strike is in protest of the company’s refusal to enter into an initial collective bargaining agreement regarding guaranteed wage increases, adding the company is offering only 0.5% per year raises on an across-the-board approach, with additional pay increases based on management’s discretion.

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What Happens Next: Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving that has traditionally been one of the busiest retailer-based shopping days of the year. A strike by the Wirecutter unit would freeze its content on product reviews and research at a time when many consumers are looking up information on potential holiday gifts.

The union members within the unit pointed to other ongoing and recent strikes over the past few months as evidence of a workforce that expects its share of the revenue generated on behalf of major corporations.

“Workers in industries of all sorts are recognizing that the last 40 years have seen an enormous shift of the profits of their labor going not to themselves in any meaningful way but to shareholders and management,” said Tim Hefferman, a member of the Wirecutter bargaining committee, “and for a lot of reasons are now finally saying no, enough is enough.”

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