Union filing grievance over New York Times shuttering of sports desk

Although the sports department at the New York Times is still active, a union representing its newsroom has filed a grievance to challenge plans to shutter the division, according to Ben Strauss of the Washington Post.

Last week, the Times announced its intention to shut down its traditional sports section and direct all of that group's coverage towards The Athletic, which the company acquired in January 2021. The Times stated that the 35 writers and journalists will be shifted to different departments, with no layoffs planned.

However, the NewsGuild-CWA (Communication Workers of America) believes that the Times is making the shift because staffers at The Athletic are not unionized. While not fighting against the shutdown of the internal sports department, the union said in its statement:

“The Times Guild has jurisdiction over journalism jobs at The Times, yet the company is claiming it has the right to subcontract to itself and have nonunion workers do union work without the same job protections, wages and other benefits we have fought so hard to secure. These claims are preposterous on their face and a brazen attempt at union-busting.”

Although the Times has managed to find great success in terms of "hard news" coverage online, its sports section has struggled with relevance in the social media era, with the rare exception of investigative reporting. Even in that realm, The Athletic has managed to make its mark during its seven-plus year existence.

The Athletic, which the Times purchased for $550 million in 2021, has around 400 writers and editors, all who are not unionized. According to Strauss, the Times has 20 days to respond, and the Guild has 45 days to file a request for an arbitration hearing. A key point in his report is the impact of an arbitrator's decision for either side:

The arbitrator could rule that Times sports coverage is guild work, which would mean its sports coverage couldn’t be subcontracted to the Athletic and the Times newsroom would have to produce the Times’s sports coverage. If the arbitrator were to side with the Times, it could set a precedent that the Times can outsource the work of a section to non-guild workers.

This is not the first time the Times and the Guild have butted heads in recent years. In August 2021, tech workers at the paper held a half-day walkout to protest what they believed were union-busting tactics as the staffers themselves were trying to organize in order to join the Guild.