New York Times tech staffers could walk off the job on Election Day in ongoing contract spat

Hundreds of tech staffers at the beleaguered New York Times could vote to walk off the job on Tuesday if the company doesn’t deliver on their job demands.

The threatened Election Day walkout, which could critically hamper the newspaper’s coverage of the presidential vote, comes amid stalled negotiations between the two sides, the Wall Street Journal said.

“We have made it clear that we need to reach an agreement before the election in order to avert a strike,” the union’s bargaining team wrote to the Times’ board of directors urging its members to intervene.

The stance by the Guild, which represents software engineers, data analysts and designers at “The Gray Lady,” marks the first test of the union’s labor muscle since it was formed in 2022, the outlet said.

According to the union, members voted to walk off the job by a 95% margin in September if the company did not meet their demands, which include job security in the face of improving AI technology and pay equity for women and minority union members.

Election Day, particularly on a presidential election year, typically provides an enormous surge in readership for news organizations, as is expected to be the case on Tuesday with a hotly contested race between Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

A spokesperson for the Times griped to the Journal that the union’s deadline seemed “arbitrary” and said that selecting Election Day “feels both unnecessary and at odds with our mission.”

Nonethless, the spokesperson said the paper has “robust plans in place to ensure that we are able to fulfill our mission and serve our readers.”

The Guild has not had a contract since its founding, but newspaper officials note that its members are among the highest paid at the company with most receiving six-figure salaries — with compensation and stock options worth about $190,000 on average.

“We look forward to continuing to work with the 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,” a Times spokesperson said in an email Sunday.

“We’re in one of the most consequential periods of coverage for our readers,” they said.

As recently as Saturday union members rallied at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn for the benefits.

The Guild did not immediately respond to request for comment from The Post on Sunday.