Nitpicking on certain aspects of a Bargaining Agreement that may have been negotiated a long time ago for reasons that have been lost or made untenable as the times/economic conditions have changed is rather disingenuous, knowingly or otherwise.
Take the Lifetime Job Guarantee for example; it very well may be that at the time this feature was agreed upon by Management and Union members, there were economic or other conditions present at that time that made it advantageous for both Management and Union members to agree to. It very well could have been agreed upon during a time when pay cuts and other concessions were negotiated in exchange for job security. Over time, this feature, as well as others that were previously negotiated became an "untouchable" part of a Bargaining Agreement that when put on the table for re-negotiating, automatically triggered a call for a Strike.
It's important to keep in mind that every time a new contract is negotiated, the slate is wiped clean, and everything that was agreed upon in the previous contract is null and void and the whole process starts over again.
At places like the Times where I assume a long relationship between Management and Union exists, each side knows very well what demands will either trigger a strike by the Union or a lock-out and the hiring of replacement workers by Management, and are usually avoided like the Plague.
As those years have passed, those many Bargaining Agreements that occurred between Management and Union have also been modified to suit the times that both Management and Union members have found themselves in.
Think about it...The Management and Union at NYT have probably negotiated many contracts before the present one. In every previous Agreement reached, the NYT survived and the workers kept working.
The present Contract Negotiations is no different. Changes will be negotiated to suit the existing economic, social and technological condtions, and as Skoorb previously mentioned, if the passage of time so dictates, the NYT may very well go the way of other industries that have ceased to exist from obsolescence.