The tech employees will return to work on Tuesday following a strike that started just before Election Day.
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The New York Times’ tech employees, who are behind Wordle and Connections among other games and features, will go back to work on Tuesday following a weeklong strike. In a statement published on Monday, the New York Times Tech Guild said union members will “march into the office together in the morning as a symbol of what’s to come for The Times.”
The Tech Guild represents the over 600 workers who manage technology across the digital paper. Union members went on strike the day before the US election, raising concerns about whether the NYT’s vote-tracking tech, like the Needle, would hold up on Election Day. The union and the NYT will continue negotiating on a contract.
“The systems and digital products that worked over the election did so thanks to the hundreds of unit members who worked for months preparing everything to run smoothly,” Kathy Zhang, New York Times Tech Guild unit chair said. “What broke down during this strike broke because our members weren’t at work.”
The Tech Guild says its work stoppage impacted the NYT’s election coverage in a few ways: the outlet didn’t display state-level or non-presidential needles, for instance, while its app and website “were slow to load.” Last week, Business Insider reported that around 100 tech workers crossed the picket line on Election Day.
Now that the strike is over, the Tech Guild says supporters can resume playing the NYT’s games and using the Cooking app. The union previously asked people to avoid playing any of the NYT’s daily puzzle games, and it instead directed users to the games striking workers created on a separate website.
“We look forward to continuing to work with Tech Guild to reach a fair contract that takes into account that they are already among the highest paid individual contributors in the Company and journalism is our top priority,” NYT spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha said in an emailed statement to The Verge.
She also noted that the publication saw “our smoothest site performance during an election ever” and that “site performance was due in large part to the election readiness work of the Tech Guild unit members and others across the company in the months leading up to the election.”
Update, November 11th: Added further information from the NYT.
