Tech workers at The New York Times have formed a union, part of an ongoing trend within the tech industry.

Once nearly devoid of unions, the tech industry has seen growing support for unionization. Kickstarter employees unionized in early 2020, and Alphabet/Google employees unionized at the beginning of 2021.

According to Katie Robertson, writing for the Times (of course):

The group, a majority of which signed cards in support of the effort, of more than 650 employees includes software engineers, designers, data analysts and product managers. It will be represented by the NewsGuild of New York. NewsGuild membership already includes more than 1,300 newsroom workers and business staff members at The Times, as well as workers at other media outlets.

While that may seem like an inordinate amount of tech workers for a newspaper, the Times has a goal of reaching 10 million digital subscribers by 2025, leading to increased hiring of tech talent. The Times nearly hit the seven million mark in 2020, with digital subscribers becoming the biggest source of revenue.

The tech workers will not be in a the same bargaining unit as other Times workers represented by NewGuild. The workers have asked management to voluntarily recognize their new union.