New York Times Announces Massive Stock Buyback Program. Its Editorial Board Says That Should Be Illegal.

Gray Lady’s business side is at odds with editorial board’s left-wing positions Getty images

The New York TimesIt announced last week that it would purchase $250 million worth of its own shares. The Gray Lady’s editorial board views are at odds with its business decisions.

The Times stock repurchasing program—which is when a corporation buys shares of its own stock in order to lower the supply of available stock and boost the price—is being financed in part with higher-than-expected profits and an 11 percent increase in revenue from 2021, according to the Gray Lady’s February 8th announcement. Following the buyback announcement, the company’s stock spiked by 12 percent.

Stock repurchasing programmes are a part of the reason. “American workers have suffered a devastating loss of economic power, manifest in their wages, benefits, and working conditions,” A June 2020 survey. Times editorial. According to the paper, stopping this trend is necessary. “reversing the legalization of share buybacks.” Critics like the Times editorial board say stock buybacks, which were legalized in 1982, come at the expense of companies investing in workers.

An announcement about the stock buyback could cause more controversy in a workplace already plagued by internal conflict. The Times union management and union are currently engaged in tension contract negotiations. Last December saw the first strike at Times in over 40 years. The paper’s staff blasted their employer for not being fair. “wage proposal [that] still fails to meet the economic moment, lagging far behind both inflation and the average rate of wage gains in the U.S.”

Profits at The Times have increased nearly 50 percent in the last year from $240.9 million to close to $350million by 2022. These figures, according to the union, warrant substantial wage increases. 

According to a Times reporter, New Yorker last December, the paper’s CEO Meredith Kopit Levien is more concerned with how she looks to investors by “fighting for better profits” She is not what she seems “about the paper’s long-term reputation,” which would be bolstered by focusing less on Wall Street’s opinions. Levien’s management style appears to mirror the “unapologetic pursuit of profit” In its June 2020 editorial, the Times lambasted. 

The Times also criticised how “in recent decades—as the U.S. economy expanded and CEO salaries skyrocketed—workers have been left behind.” Levien

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