Tech union workers at the New York Times have threatened to strike on Election Day over a bizarre list of demands that include pet bereavement leave, a four-day work week — and even a ban on scented products in break rooms, according to a report.
The Times Tech Guild’s laundry list of demands during its protracted two-year battle for a contract has also included a call for unlimited sick time, job security for non-citizens who are in the United States on work visas in the event of layoffs and mandatory trigger warnings when discussing news events, Semafor reported.
The union — which represents around 600 software engineers and other tech-oriented, non-editorial workers at the Times — voted last week to authorize a strike, dangling the prospect that the work stoppage could come during the peak traffic period around November’s battle for the White House, according to the outlet.
The Times, headed by chairman AG Sulzberger, said the guild’s economic demands would cost the company more than $100 million in compensation and benefits over the span of the proposed three-year contract, Semafor reported.
The company said that its employees already receive $10,000 in reimbursement for adoption or surrogacy expenses, $50,000 for fertility care and discounts on pet, home and auto insurance.
Members of the Tech Guild earn an average salary of $190,000 a year, which includes salary, bonuses and restricted stock options — about $40,000 more than their brethren in unions that represent journalists at the publication, according to the company.
The Times “look[s] foward to working with the group to reach a fair contract, that takes into account that they are already among the highest paid in the Company and journalism is our top priority,” Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoads Ha told The Post on Tuesday.
“Since July 2022, bargaining has been focusing on a broad range of non-economic proposals from the TechGuild such as pet bereavement leave, unscented cleaning products, and banning machine learning among many other topics that are typically not part of collective bargaining agreements.”
The Tech Guild did not return The Post’s request for comment.
The union told Semafor that it has already withdrawn or resolved some of its earlier proposals without specifying which demands have been put aside. It accused management of “an attempt to distract” by releasing the list of demands.
Tech workers say that while they earn more than editorial employees, their wages pale in comparison to those of company executives.
“Times management likes to compare the journalists to the Tech Guild only when it suits them,” a Tech Guild spokesperson told Semafor.
“In terms of salaries, wages vary widely across both unions but we are happy to discuss executive compensation relative to workers at the Times.”
The guild told Semafor that it wants the collective bargaining agreement to rectify pay disparities between white employees and non-white employees as well as between men and women.
Rhoades Ha disputed the guild’s assertion, saying that the company did a large-scale analysis and found “no evidence of discrimination.”
“The Tech Guild leadership’s claims about gender and racial pay differences are connected to their methodology, which doesn’t compare the pay of employees performing similar work,” Rhoades Ha said.
The union also wants more money for non-white staffers so that they can attend conferences as well as language in the collective bargaining agreement that prioritizes non-citizens who are in the United States on work visas in the event of layoffs — proposals which could violate employment laws.
Tech workers also want assurances from management that they will be protected against the rise of artificial intelligence, which threatens to replace humans in the workforce.
The company claims that the tech workers want veto power over which news stories get published in the Times as well as “the ability to decline work based on advertisers” and a “right to request letters to the editor not be published.”
The Times said that these proposals “ran counter to our standards” and would have violated “ethical journalism standards” and thus “have no place in a collective bargaining agreement.”
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