NYT strike uncovers a newspaper unfit for workers

New York City—For the first time in over 40 years, over 1,100 New York Times journalists and staff walked off the job in a one-day strike for a major labor dispute. more than 1,100 unionized Times  employees walked off the job today in a 24-hour strike. The NYT Guild represents journalists, editors,  advertising sales, business staff and security guards who have been without a new contract since March 2021 (NYT, 12/7). The workers struck against the biggest liberal mouthpiece for the main wing of the U.S. ruling class. As long as capitalism rules, media workers won’t control the narrative. For workers to own our labor, we need to smash this profit-based system. This capitalist rag is unfit for workers.

Good on paper? Trash in reality
NYT workers were joined by a delegation of striking UAW workers from HarperCollins who have been on strike against the publisher for three weeks, striking Guild members from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, who have been on strike for a month, as well as members of the National Writers Union, CWA, and Teamster truck drivers who refused to cross the picket lines. One of the main issues is the company’s racist performance rating system and the demand for a more integrated newsroom. In a study released last August, the union found that, “white Guild members were more likely to get the top ratings, while Black and Latin members were more likely to get the lowest two ratings” (NYT, 12/7). Another issue is a safe post-pandemic return-to-work policy.

After decades of cutting back on wages, pensions, and healthcare, the NYT is making bank in a media market that has been facing massive cutbacks. The Times made over $300 million in operating profits this year, offered shareholders a big stock buyback and gave big raises to their executives. Yet, Times Chief Executive Meredith Kopit Levien cries that it’s not “what it used to be” (AP News, 12/8). The company hired scabs and international workers to deliver its content.

As capitalism continues to devolve into crisis after crisis, more and more workers may gain class consciousness. The NYT institution is the epitome of liberal democratic ideals, promoting themselves as a beacon of truth in the chaos. Yet, it can't provide basic conditions for its workers? The company touts worker-friendly ideas, but the strike exposes the hollowness and hypocrisy of this capitalist institution. In essence, as long as media is owned by the profit-making class, media workers are just as expendable as every other worker.

Media, an industry of class struggle
The media industry has become a hotbed of class struggle, the result of massive consolidation and cutbacks. About 25 percent of all newsroom jobs were lost during the pandemic and about 2,000 local media outlets have closed, being replaced by huge conglomerates and even Artificial Intelligence producing some sports articles. These vast “news deserts” have added to the sea of misinformation
and have aided groups like QAnon and various fascist militias. The News Guild (TNG) and other unions have organized tens of thousands of media workers in the past few years and the number of strikes and job actions are increasing. Staff at Reuters and several Gannett papers are also preparing for strikes.

Can these mostly young “white-collar” workers, along with striking part-time faculty at the New School in NY and 48,000 graduate student workers in California, represent the beginning of sharpening class war? From railroad workers to Amazon and Starbucks workers, there is a stirring among the masses. In NYC,  contracts are expiring among CUNY faculty, which is two-thirds adjuncts, and transit workers.

As the class struggle sharpens, Progressive Labor Party has the responsibility to turn class struggle into  grounds for revolutionary communist ideas. PLP will have to be embedded in these workplaces and among these workers, to move workers past the Democratic Party treadmill of reform, and onto the path of communist revolution. Slowly but surely, this is taking place.