Journalists working for The Athletic demanded that The New York Times recognize their efforts to join the newsroom union — setting up another labor battle with management.
The Times spun off its long-heralded sports department in September 2023 and replaced it with coverage from The Athletic, a digital sports news website it bought for $550 million in cash in January 2022.
On Monday, an organizing committee representing the 200 non-union employees at The Athletic sent an email to Times publisher AG Sulzberger and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien asking them to voluntarily recognize their offer to join the Times Guild, e which is part of the NewsGuild of New. York.
“We are proud of all that The Athletic and The New York Times as a whole have accomplished since the 2022 acquisition, and we know that our inclusion in the Times Guild will only further strengthen our work,” the email said.
“We call on the company to recognize what has been true since the company began publishing The Athletic’s work under The New York Times banner: We are a newsroom, and our colleagues at The Athletic are members of the Times Guild.”
The NewsGuild warned the Gray Lady that failure to recognize the Athletic workers’ request to join the Times Guild will lead it to “pursue other legal avenues.”
Susan DeCarava, president of the NewsGuild of New York, said the union “will not support a two-tier system that disenfranchises workers and undermines our members, nor will we accept management’s charade that The Athletic is a separate entity “.
Jen Sheehan, a spokeswoman for the Times Guild, told The Post that Athletic staff are not offered the same benefits as their unionized colleagues.
“We know anecdotally that they make far less than Times Guild members do,” Sheehan told The Post.
She added that the health insurance of Athletic workers “is not as strong and as stable as it is.” [the] contract” under which Times Guild members operate.
Sheehan also said Athletic staff are subject to performance evaluations based on “website metrics.”
“This is not a thing for the rest of the newsroom,” she said. “This is a major difference.”
Jordan Cohen, a spokesman for the Times, confirmed to The Post that the publication received the request and is in the process of reviewing it.
The letter from Athletic staff follows a week-long work stoppage just before Election Day by the union representing more than 600 technology workers at the paper after talks over a new collective agreement stalled.
Last month, the two sides reached a preliminary agreement that calls for wage increases of up to 8.25% over the life of the contract, as well as “reasonable” protections against termination – among other benefits.
The strike, which was timed to coincide with the presidential election, did not cause major disruptions to the paper’s coverage of the Nov. 5 race, according to management.
Shares of the New York Times Company were trading up just over 0.6% as of midday Monday. Its share price was around $53.20. In the past 12 months, the stock is up more than 12%.
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