The National Labor Relations Board has alleged in a complaint that The New York Times violated federal workplace law by telling some employees that they could not publicly support a recently formed union of tech workers.
The complaint, filed Dec. 29, claimed that The Times had been “interfering with, restraining and coercing employees” in violation of their rights. It was issued in response to an unfair labor practice claim made in June by the NewsGuild, which represents many Times employees.
The NewsGuild said that some tech workers were told by managers in May that they could not publicly support the union because they supervised interns at the paper.
A hearing is scheduled to take place before an administrative law judge on March 14. Bloomberg first reported on the complaint.
“We strongly disagree with the union’s allegations about the supervisory status of certain technology employees and welcome the opportunity to explain our position to the board,” Danielle Rhoades Ha, a spokeswoman for the Times Company, said in a statement.
The tech workers, including software engineers and product managers, announced in April that they had formed the Times Tech Guild. The Times Company declined to voluntarily recognize the union, pushing the matter to a formal election through the N.L.R.B.
The Times Tech Guild said on Twitter on Wednesday that the N.L.R.B. had given The Times an opportunity to settle the issue, but it had refused and “opted to spend more money on legal fees to fight this decision.”
Other Times employees are also represented by the NewsGuild, including reporters, editors and more than 60 employees at Wirecutter, a product review site owned by The Times. The Wirecutter Union reached a deal on a contract last month after two years of negotiations.
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