The New York Times Tech Guild union files unfair labor practice charges over AI tools used to monitor and evaluate employee performance without bargaining.

The Tech Guild, representing around 700 software engineers, designers, product and project managers, and data analysts at The New York Times, filed unfair labor practice charges saying Times management refused to provide information about how it uses AI, plans for AI use, and how it will affect employees' jobs and workflow. The union also filed grievances claiming the company violated their collective bargaining agreement by deploying two internal AI tools—DX and Glean—without notification or negotiation.

DX is an engineering productivity tool that tracks employees' output, generative AI use, and efficiency. Originally presented as a way to measure the company as a whole, the tool has become more personalized in recent months, with benchmarks applied to individuals and cited in disciplinary conversations. Glean pulls internal knowledge bases like wikis, GitHub documents, Google Docs, and emails to let employees query the system; staff worry it can be used to monitor individual workers' contributions.

Union chair Ben Harnett says the blanket metrics flatten work and create de facto quotas that don't correlate to quality or the number of features delivered. The Tech Guild believes the use of these tools violates contract protections around privacy, monitoring, job descriptions, and requirements for employee notification and bargaining. The Times says it will respond through its "normal contractual process."