I love Wirecutter. You love Wirecutter. But don’t use it — don’t even visit the website — until next Tuesday. The site’s workers are taking part in a Black Friday weekend strike, lasting through Cyber Monday, to protest two years of failed contract negotiations with the New York Times Co.
In a recent article for Digiday, Sara Guaglione offered some background on the job action, including the NewsGuild’s claim that Wirecutter staff members are paid $43,000 less than their counterparts at The New York Times.
The Times Co. is profitable and growing. It can afford to share some of that prosperity with its employees. And good for the union for hitting management where it hurts — the busiest shopping days of the year.
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As longtime union members and supporters, my wife and I agree with the views expressed here. As she and I discussed this, she wondered: “How will GBH replace ‘Beat the Press’?” I’m worndering, too. Is any replacement in the works? We miss how we long spent 7 Friday nights, and discussion about media issues is so crucial now.
Nothing new here. Ten of the 16 grads of the first new media workshop class I taught, in 1994, were hired by newspapers, including the NYT, which had deliberately set up non-guild web operations (and thus shattered the synergy that was their only advantage over pure web startups). Slow learners, newspapers are.
Bob, all I know is that the local politics show that replaced “Beat the Press” has been extended through the end of the year.