NY Times Tech Guild Ends Strike

Following eight days of an unfair labor practice (ULP) strike, New York Times Tech Guild (TNG-CWA Local 31003) workers have returned to work and ended their boycott of New York Times Games and Cooking. The strike was one of the first tech workers’ strikes in the U.S., and the striking workers ran one of the largest remote pickets in the nation.

Each day of the strike, hundreds of workers and supporters showed up on the picket line to offer their solidarity, with thousands more across the country breaking their Wordle and Connections streaks to avoid crossing the digital picket line.

While New York Times leadership continues to risk the company’s journalistic mission and waste extraordinary amounts of money to avoid speaking with the Guild, a strong contract remains the Times Tech Guild’s top priority. Now management knows what the Guild is capable of. Tech Guild members are looking forward to continuing the fight at the bargaining table.

The Guild is asking supporters to sign a petition urging New York Times management to stop union busting.

ZeniMax Workers United-CWA members in Hunt Valley, Md. (top left); Austin, Texas (top right); Richardson, Texas (bottom left); and Rockville, Md., joined the picket line outside their respective ZeniMax offices.

Earlier this week, hundreds of Maryland and Texas video game workers at Microsoft subsidiary ZeniMax Studios, members of ZeniMax Workers United-CWA, walked off the job in a one-day strike to call out the company for the lack of progress at the bargaining table on a few key issues. Workers cited a lack of remote work options and the company’s replacement of in-house quality assurance work with outsourced labor without notifying the union. In October, CWA filed an unfair labor practice charge against the company.

“What we want to get out of this is job security. We have members who wouldn’t be able to return to the office if they were forced to and would have to quit even in a hybrid model,” said ZeniMax Workers United-CWA member and Senior Quality Assurance tester Dylan Burton. “We have huge concerns about the way the company is utilizing outsourcing and how that may impact the safety of our jobs over time. Our employer needs to meet us on these issues, and that’s what we hope comes out of this strike.”

The strike comes on the heels of another action where CWA Members at Microsoft video game subsidiary Activision held rallies in California, Minnesota, and Texas to demand the company provide exceptions to in-office requirements after implementing a return-to-office mandate.

“Hopefully between the ULP and this strike we can convince Microsoft to stop dragging their feet and meet us at the table over our reasonable demands,” said ZeniMax Workers United-CWA member and Senior Quality Assurance tester Juniper Dowell.

In January 2023, ZeniMax Workers United-CWA formed the first video game studio union at Microsoft, representing over 300 quality assurance workers in Maryland and Texas. ZeniMax Studios is a video game production company known for its popular games such as Elder Scrolls, DOOM, Quake Champions, and Fallout.

On November 20, University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE-CWA Local 9119) members at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) will begin a two-day strike in response to the University of California’s ongoing refusal to bargain in good faith with healthcare, research, and technical staff. The union has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board in which they’ve also cited the university’s decision to unilaterally implement healthcare cost increases on members outside of bargaining and its refusal to share the extent of persistent staffing vacancies that workers say puts patient care at risk.

“Right now, patients are waiting in hallways because the University of California refuses to be transparent about the staffing crisis they have orchestrated. When patient demand goes up, hospitals need more staff. The UC system may not care to prioritize patient care, but our members do and are willing to hold UC accountable,” said UPTE-CWA President and Bargaining Team Chief Negotiator Dan Russell.

Among the 4,000 workers represented by UPTE-CWA across the UCSF Parnassus and Mission Bay campuses are physician assistants, pharmacists, RN case managers, rehabilitation specialists, mental health clinicians, clinical lab scientists, optometrists, staff research associates, language interpreters, IT workers, and more. They provide world-class patient care in UC hospitals and medical centers and advance important medical and scientific research, including biomedical, cardiovascular, and cancer research, as well as work on experimental medicines, HIV, neurodegenerative disorders, and infectious diseases.

This limited strike is meant as a warning to the entire University of California system. All 20,000 UPTE-represented workers are encouraged to be ready to join their union siblings should the university continue its unfair labor practices.

If you’d like to show solidarity, you can share the UPTE-CWA messages on Instagram, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), or Threads.

Over the past few months, CWA members and retirees have been reaching out to union households to turn out the vote for pro-worker candidates. Through hard work and dedication, including making and sending almost 700,000 phone calls and text messages, CWA volunteers, organizers, supporters, and allies made the difference in several key U.S. Senate and House races.

• In Arizona, Ruben Gallego will become the state’s first Latino to serve in the U.S. Senate.
• In Maryland, Angela Alsobrooks will become the state’s first Black woman to serve in the U.S. Senate.
• In Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin was re-elected.
• In Nevada, Jacky Rosen was re-elected.
• In Michigan, Elissa Slotkin won her election to the U.S. Senate.
• In Ohio, Marcy Kaptur and Emilia Sykes were re-elected to the U.S. House.
• In New York, Pat Ryan was re-elected to the U.S. House.
• In Pennsylvania, Chris Deluzio was re-elected to the U.S. House.

CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. expressed his gratitude to all CWA volunteers and allies who participated in this year’s election. “Union members and retirees did what we set out to do. We knocked doors, had conversations, and turned out union voters. CWA activists left it all on the field. I’m not just saying it; I saw it firsthand because I was out with them, too. I’m very proud of the work we did, and we will continue to fight for our members and retirees and all working families.”

Last week, soccer players for the newly launched USL Super League (USLS) voted to join the United Soccer League Players Association (USLPA-CWA Local 7211). The new unit, which USL voluntarily recognized, has approximately 190 players.

The USLS is a women’s soccer professional league in its inaugural season and currently has eight clubs: Brooklyn FC, Carolina Ascent FC, Dallas Trinity FC, DC Power FC, Fort Lauderdale United FC, Lexington SC FC, Spokane Zephyr FC, and Tampa Bay Sun FC. If you live in any of these areas, go check out a game and cheer on our newest CWA members.

“I’m really excited that the USL Super League is becoming part of the USLPA,” said USLPA-CWA 7211 organizer and USLS player Rylee Baisden. “This integration is a big step, bringing male and female players together under one united voice. I’m grateful to be part of this journey as we work to support each other and create positive change for our sport. Looking forward to what we can accomplish together.”

Members of USLPA-CWA 7211 are breaking new ground in professional sports as it is one of the first professional players’ associations where men and women players are in the same union.

This milestone is due in large part to the work of USLPA-CWA 7211 organizers Bri Visalli and Rylee Baisden, USLPA-CWA 7211 Executive Director Connor Tobin, and District 7 Staff Representative Jeff Lacher, who worked tirelessly to secure neutrality for, and support the organizing of, soccer’s newest professional players.

On October 30, CWA hosted a half-day virtual summit in collaboration with the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) to feature key results from the most recent IGDA Game Developer Satisfaction Survey and to highlight the voices of video game workers and advocacy organizations across the video game industry.

The first panel, led by Western University Associate Professor Johanna Weststar and King’s College London Senior Lecturer Jamie Woodcock, was a discussion on the state of the industry amid a year of record layoffs and a growing trend of video game organizing.

“The current wave of unionization began in 2018. But what we’ve seen is a real spike in collective action from 2018 until now with the start of Game Workers Unite as an international movement for unionization,” said Woodcock. “What we’re seeing overall is a really interesting case study of what happens when workers decide that they want to unionize internationally and then decide what it means to unionize in a national context.”

Following their conversation, IGDA Executive Director Dr. Jakin Vela facilitated a roundtable panel on “Shaping a Sustainable Future for Game Developers,” where video game organizers and advocates shared their experiences building worker power and hope for the future.

“When you are functioning inside a structure that is so beyond your reach, you must do everything you can to affect your immediate surroundings,” said panelist and CWA Local 9510 member Em Geiger about organizing at the developer level. “It is entirely about community and talking to one another.”

A full livestream of the summit can be found here.

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