• New York Times staffers walked off the job on Thursday for one day.
• Union staffers are in heated contract negotiations with the paper over issues like pay.
• The threat of a longer strike looms if the two sides can't reach a deal.

Union staffers at The New York Times walked off the job on Thursday, the first such protest at the paper since the late 1970s.

More than 1,100 union members had pledged to stop working at midnight on December 8 if an agreement had not been reached over a new union contract, with the stoppage planned for 24 hours.

"We're asking readers to not engage in any @nytimes platforms tomorrow and stand with us on the digital picket line!" tweeted Amanda Hess, a critic-at-large at The Times. "Read local news. Listen to public radio. Make something from a cookbook. Break your Wordle streak."

The action comes as the union and Times management remain at odds. Insider reported in September that the two sides were clashing over the biggest sticking point: money. The union has been pushing for an 8% raise each year over the next four for its members, while the Times has countered with lower hikes. The previous contract expired in March of last year.

"Strikes typically happen when talks deadlock. That is not where we are today," New York Times executive editor Joe Kahn wrote in a memo to staff, according to an unbylined Times story about the one-day strike beginning. "While the company and the NewsGuild remain apart on a number of issues, we continue to trade proposals and make progress toward an agreement."

Talks have dragged on for months, with union members becoming increasingly frustrated. They have pointed to the paper's business success and are asking for a greater share. Union members plan to picket outside of the New York Times headquarters on Thursday.

"Management continues to refuse the $65K salary floor proposed by the Times Guild and their wage proposal still fails to meet the economic moment, lagging far behind both inflation and the average rate of wage gains in the U.S.," the union said in a statement.

As Vanity Fair reported, the threat of a walkout sent managers scrambling for a contingency plan, requesting that staffers submit work early as they would ahead of a holiday and leaning on nonunionized managers and international staff to keep the paper and website humming.

While the walkout is only one day, it's the most significant action that the union has taken in years, and it suggests that a future longer strike is in the cards, as Insider previously reported.

"I think people feel that management doesn't listen unless everybody is beside themselves and ready to walk out the door, so if that's what it's going to take, then that's what it's going to take," Frances Robles, a Florida-based Times correspondent, told Insider in September.

Read Insider's full look inside The New York Times' heated union fight, where a potential strike looms and the biggest sticking point is pay