‘Wordle’ players break their streaks in solidarity with New York Times strike

8 December, 2022

Wordle answer

Fans of the daily puzzle game Wordle are breaking their streaks today, in a show of solidarity for striking New York Times workers.

New York Times union staffers are staging a 24-hour walkout today, the first of its kind at the paper in over 40 years. The staffers are striking over stalled contract negotiations, which have been ongoing since their previous contracts expired in March 2021.

The union is calling for fairer contracts, and alerted management that they would stage a walkout if they couldn’t reach a deal by today, December 8. Negotiations continued over December 6 and 7, but the parties remain divided over issues such as remote work policies and wage increases.

According to New York Times reporter Frances Robles, negotiations collapsed last night when the company “walked off the table,” leading to today’s walk-out from union members.

This morning, the NewsGuild of New York Tweeted that “over 1,000 New York Times workers are now officially on work stoppage, the first of this scale at the company in 4 decades. It’s never an easy decision to refuse to do work you love, but our members are willing to do what it takes to win a better newsroom for all.”

As a show of solidarity, the striking workers at the New York Times have called on the public to join them on the “digital picket line,” asking them to stay away from any New York Times platforms – including Wordle, which the New York Times acquired earlier this year.

“Read local news. Make something from a cookbook. Break your Wordle streak,” said Maggie Astor, a reporter for the New York Times.

During the strike, Wordle fans have used Twitter to express solidarity with striking workers and encourage others to do the same. Pop culture critic Matt Baume tweeted that he would be ending his 166 win streak, adding that “NY Times management has forced this to happen & skipping a word puzzle for one day is the least any of us can do.”

That sentiment is fairly widespread on Twitter, with one user joking that the “first person to hack tomorrow’s Wordle and make it say “SCABS” is my hero.”

Earlier in the week, quality assurance (QA) staff at Bethesda Softworks’ parent company ZeniMax Media became the first workers at Microsoft to launch a union.

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