In 2024, media workers of the Ziff Davis Creators Guild (ZDCG, part of the NewsGuild of New York, local 31003) won pro-worker artificial intelligence (AI) language in their first successor collective bargaining agreement. Despite being a union of 62 workers among a corporate conglomerate of 4,000, we came together to fight the boss and set up AI guardrails.

Here are the highlights of the AI section of our contract.

• Definition of “generative artificial intelligence”: We specified generative AI as systems that can generate content, not existing technologies that can assist with content creation like spellcheck and Grammarly. We don’t consider those things to be threats to our jobs.
• No layoffs due to the implementation of generative AI and no reduction in base salary (meaning, no reduction in someone’s annual salary as opposed to a bonus)!
• Implementation of an AI subcommittee where unit members and management will come together and discuss issues that come up including if the company plans on implementing anything that will impact our jobs. Management must give the subcommittee and thus the members reasonable advance notice of this.
• Editorial integrity: We have a separate article about editorial integrity that already existed from our first contract but we wanted specifics about AI here.
• Any AI content must be done at the direction and editorial review of human beings with editing duties — this is very specific because we didn’t want to create a situation where reporters whose jobs are to write would now be saddled with this work.
• The company must provide transparency around use of AI on-site for our readers in the form of disclosures both in text and multimedia.