The New York Times tech union ended a week-long strike without a contract in hand, with a union leader stating, "The vibes are not good."

Tech employees at The New York Times will resume work on Tuesday without a contract, after a week-long strike during the election period.

The New York Times Tech Guild members plan to march into the office together in the morning as a symbol of their future intentions for The Times. Union members informed Planet Chronicle Digital that they have not received any communication from leadership regarding their last counter-proposal on Sunday, November 3rd.

The Tech Guild, comprising 700 members, began their strike on the day before Election Day, after failing to reach an agreement with leadership despite over two years of negotiations. The union is fighting for "just cause, fair pay, and remote work protection."

"The Tech Guild unit chair and senior analytics manager at The New York Times, Kathy Zhang, stated in a press release that the Election Week ULP Strike was a warning to The Times. She emphasized that the strike demonstrated the importance of their work, particularly on election night, and highlighted the support of subscribers and allies across the country."

The strike resulted in no state-level or non-presidential needles being live on election night, which caused IOS news to display ads intermittently, resulting in a significant loss of revenue for the company. The apps and website were slow to load, publishing issues produced error messages for readers on articles and updates, and Times subscribers received hundreds of thousands of emails with broken links, as announced by the NYT Tech Guild.

"The systems and digital products that functioned during the election were due to the efforts of hundreds of unit members who spent months preparing for a seamless operation," Zhang stated. "The breakdown during the strike occurred because our members were not present."

The NYT spokesperson informed Planet Chronicle Digital that negotiations have not progressed since the strike started, but they highlighted that last week's election coverage was their smoothest site performance during an election.

Since the 2020 elections, the Presidential Election Results page and Needle page on The Times's website have been viewed more than any other page across the entire site in a three-day period, with tens of millions of views, which is more than three times the average daily readership over the past few months.

Stacy Cowley, a Times business reporter and News Guild representative, stated to Planet Chronicle Digital that "the atmosphere is not positive" among union members and leadership.

"The newsroom expressed frustration about the company's ongoing fight to deny Tech Guild colleagues the same job protections they have had for generations, as evidenced by the difficulties faced in the last week when The Times operated without more than 500 of their Tech Guild colleagues."

She added, "I hope the company finishes this fast so it can begin the hard work of regaining our trust and repairing the battered morale evident at NYT."

The CEO and CTO of the paper were repeatedly accused of union busting by the union.

While Levien earned $10.3 million last year, she wants employees to "settle for crumbs," according to a billboard the group had on display last week. The Guild has accused Sobel of trying to "force remote tech workers back to the office" while he "works remotely from Silicon Valley."

"On election night, they made the decision to put Times journalism at risk rather than negotiate a fair contract with us, and our members will continue to fight until a fair contract is secured," Anthony Napoli, NewsGuild of NY treasurer, stated.

The New York Times Digital is eager to continue collaborating with Tech Guild to negotiate a fair contract that acknowledges their high salaries as individual contributors and prioritizes journalism.

This report was contributed to by Brian Flood and Nikolas Lanum of Planet Chronicle Digital.