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Internal documents and Slack messages obtained by the Guardian reveal senior executives at the New York Times are heavily leaning on workers to vote no in a union election for more than 600 tech employees.

Meredith Kopit Levien, the chief executive of the New York Times Company, wrote a memo on 19 January circulated to staff titled “Why a Tech Union Isn’t Right for Us” on the tech workers’ union election at XFun, the group within the New York Times responsible for product development operations.

“In short, we don’t believe unionizing in XFun is the right move. But that’s not because I’m anti-union,” said Kopit Levien.

In the memo, Kopit Levien cited the origin of the XFun group and its growth, and attributed any disconnect workers might be feeling to working apart during the pandemic. She also cited Wirecutter’s union as a warning sign for unionization.

Workers at Wirecutter walked out on Black Friday weekend in late November and called on the public to boycott the publication, in protest of unfair labor practices and alleging that the New York Times was bargaining in bad faith. Shortly after the walkout, an agreement was reached between the union and Times management.

Kopit Levien said in the memo: “It took Wirecutter two years to reach an agreement with the NewsGuild. And the result of those prolonged Wirecutter negotiations was a set of terms that are, in most ways, what the rest of the company already enjoys. This was two years of uncertainty and discord to negotiate terms that were largely in line with what they and their non-union colleagues already had in place.

She emphasized the relationship between management and workers, alleging the relationship would be disrupted by a union, and that the New York Times’ diversity, equity and inclusion goals would also be disrupted by a union.

Kopit Levien wrote: “This is an unproven experiment with permanent consequences.”

In Slack messages, Times chief product officer Alexandra Hardiman and chief growth officer Hannah Yang posted messages urging workers to vote no in the union election. Yang reshared Kopit Leviten’s letter to workers, prompting workers to see it on the company’s internal election resources hub.

“A union is not a silver bullet,” wrote Hardiman, urging workers to vote no. “It will introduce another layer into our process that we believe will make it harder to work – and achieve – together.”

Yang argued that a union would “dilute” the voice of smaller teams within the group of workers. “If you have any concerns about how your voice will be represented in negotiations, we urge you to vote no for the union,” she said.

“We encourage you to vote no,” a leaflet distributed by the Times to workers said. It cited three reasons: “weakening relationships between employees and managers”, “lengthy negotiating processes and inflexible multi-year agreements” and “reducing your flexibility to learn new skills”.

The Slack messages from the executive were quickly flooded by negative emojis. Only a select few workers can post in the staff-wide Slack channels, so emojis are often the only way most workers can respond to the posts.

Ballots for the mail-in election were sent out on 24 January and are due on 28 February. Vote tallies are to be counted on 7 March.

The National Labor Relations Board rejected the New York Times’ attempt to stop the election, alleging the bargaining unit was improper. The company had previously declined to voluntarily recognize the union and immediately began holding anti-union captive audience meetings with workers.

The NewsGuild of New York filed a complaint earlier this month with the NLRB, accusing the Times of violating federal labor law by adding new paid days off to the company holiday calendar for non-union employees only – which was viewed as a tactic to dissuade workers from voting for the union.

After the complaint was filed, the New York Times made similar changes to its bereavement policy, making it applicable only to non-union workers. The union is collecting signatures as part of a public petition demanding the New York Times stop what it calls union-busting.

On 5 January, the NLRB filed a complaint against the Times, ruling the company violated federal labor law by telling some employees they could not show support for tech workers seeking to unionize.

If successful, the tech workers at the New York Times would form the largest bargaining unit of tech workers in the US, according to the union.

In an email to the Guardian, a spokesperson for the New York Times wrote: “The Times Company has a long history of productive relationships with our unions. However, we do not believe a union would be best for the individuals or teams in the proposed tech and digital product unit, and could stifle innovation and collaboration.

“Also, a union among tech and digital workers would be an unproven experiment with lasting implications.”

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