Wordle is union.

I’m retired and nearly 74.

I wake up too early and take afternoon naps.

Just when I’m up with the sun we are about to go to Daylight Savings Time and it will be dark again when I rise.

I keep my iPhone by the bed and when I wake up I grab it and head for the TV room.

I play Wordle in the dark.

Surely you know about Wordle by now.

It’s a simple word game where you have to figure out a five letter word in six tries.

When it first became an internet thing people divided up into two camps.

Pro-Wordle and anti-Wordle.

I’m not sure why the anti-Wordle folks got so upset about it. It had something to do with people like me posting their results on Facebook or Twitter that annoyed them.

Whatever.

Recently the New York Times bought the game from the techie guy who created it.

The Times bought the game just in time to be part of the very significant victory of New York Times technical workers to win collective bargaining rights.

Wordle workers are union now too.

The group is the biggest tech union with bargaining rights in America. Hundreds of Google employees announced a union in January 2021, but it is not registered with the N.L.R.B. and cannot engage in collective bargaining.

NY Times’ tech workers voted in favor, 404 to 88, easily reaching the needed majority of the ballots that were cast. A win means the union, the Times Tech Guild, can begin negotiations for a contract with management.

“We’re just elated and really soaking in what this means, not only for us as tech workers at The Times and for The New York Times but also for the tech industry as a whole,” said Nozlee Samadzadeh, a senior software engineer. “I think this is going to be the start of a wave of organizing in the tech industry.”

Ms. Samadzadeh said the union was eager to bargain a contract around issues “similar to what the newsroom unit has been fighting for — issues around pay, diversity and equity, a strong contract to make our workplace more fair.”