In a move that is sure to affect no one with the good sense to not read The Los Angeles Times, employees of the nation's fifth-largest newspaper went on strike. The walk-out came amid arguments over layoffs and a lack of pay raises.
Get ready for some whiplash as these spoiled, over-credentialed journalists realize there are consequences to their actions.
It’s the first walkout in the paper’s 142-year history.
— Kiera Feldman (@kierafeldman) January 19, 2024
It’s what’s needed: management won’t even say the number of layoffs coming and refuses to bargain over them, instead demanding that we agree to gutting contract provisions like seniority
Let’s gooooooooo https://t.co/NEnBdKcZel
Kiera Feldman, an investigative reporter at the outlet, seems rather gung-ho, doesn't she? "Let's gooooooooo," she proclaims as if she's picking up a rifle and charging into the battle with her bayonet fixed. Clearly, she's ready to endure whatever may come in her righteous fight for whatever it is newspaper unions fight for.
Well, not so much.
UPDATE: LA Times management just locked us out of Slack, where we’ve been voicing our support for each other and our strike since early this morning.
— jonah valdez (@jonahmv) January 19, 2024
What a disappointing response from them — shutting us out instead of engaging with our dissent.@latguild https://t.co/rf76rLuqrO
My neck hurts. Shockingly enough, employers don't typically allow striking employees to use company resources once they walk out. It would be like striking coal miners demanding access to the break room. The entire point of the strike is that you leave the building and refuse to work.
These pampered journalists are so used to working from their couches, though, that they have no concept of the real world. You don't get to go on strike while still using your company's Slack channel to stir up dissent. Justifiably, the L.A. Times went further, also locking the striking employees out of their email accounts.
In another post, Feldman complained that she and others hadn't gotten raises since 2021. Perhaps they should have spent a little less time telling us how great Joe Biden's economy is and a little more time helping their paper turn a profit. This is the problem with unions as a bargaining tool. In some fields, they effectively serve as that because the employees are actually valuable. Is there anyone less valuable, holding less leverage than an "investigative reporter" at the L.A. Times?
Modern journalists are the softest people on the planet.
— KSLawWolf (@KSLawWolf) January 19, 2024
Do you want to know why the L.A. Times is playing hardball? Because they know they can. These union workers are going to cry on social media for a few days and then go right back to pumping out biased content because they have no other options. What are they going to do? Learn to code?
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