‘PREPOSTEROUS’

New York Times Union Challenges Decision to Kill Sports Desk

The union said the Times has breached their contract by “unilaterally removing bargaining unit work and by assigning such work to non-bargaining unit employees.”

The union representing The New York Times’ employees filed a grievance on Thursday accusing the newspaper of violating its union contract in its decision to eliminate the Times’ sports desk, The Washington Post reported. Earlier this month, the Times announced it would fold its sport coverage into The Athletic, a sports outlet owned by the Times, and promised to transition people into new roles instead of laying them off. Only two months before that, the paper reached a historic deal with its bargaining committee after tense negotiations. But now the NewsGuild said in a statement that the contract has been breached by “unilaterally removing bargaining unit work and by assigning such work to non-bargaining unit employees”—aka The Athletic, which is not unionized. The guild specifically takes issue with the idea that the Times can “subcontract to itself and have nonunion workers do union work,” not necessarily the eradication of the sports section itself. “These claims are preposterous on their face and a brazen attempt at union-busting,” the guild wrote. The Times has been given 20 days to respond to the grievance, and if denied, the guild can file for an arbitration hearing. The Times declined to comment to the Post on the grievance.