Unionized ProPublica employees are on strike over AI, layoffs and wages

Unionized employees at ProPublica, one of the nation’s leading nonprofit newsrooms, will stop working for 24 hours starting Wednesday and are asking the public to respect the digital picket line.

The ProPublica Guild’s roughly 150 members are negotiating a collective bargaining agreement after unionizing in 2023. The union says key issues remain in contention, including protections related to the use of artificial intelligence, “just cause” provisions related to employee discipline or dismissal, layoff protections, and wages.

“We have been quietly working on this issue for more than two years,” says ProPublica union member Katie Campbell. “This is a moment to show the administration and the public how important these issues are to the people who produce this work.”

The unit voted in March to approve a strike if an agreement could not be reached with ProPublica management.

One major issue workers are ignoring is how generative AI will be used at ProPublica — and exposed to the masses — in the future. Many newsroom unions are negotiating AI language in contracts for the first time since the tools became widely available in the past few years. Recently managed ProPublica Introduce AI policyThis is what Mark Olalde, a member of the negotiating committee, described as “unilateral implementation.” The NewsGuild, which represents ProPublica employees, filed an unfair labor practices accusation earlier this week over the policy’s implementation.

“The guidelines are a bit sketchy, because there’s general agreement that we don’t use (AI) in writing, we don’t use it to create images and videos and things like that at this point,” Olalde says. “What’s on the website is actually as much as the company has written things officially, which is why we’re trying to enshrine some of this stuff in an AI of the Decade article.”

Some newsrooms are gradually beginning to embrace the use of AI, but in different ways. New York TimesFor example, use artificial intelligence to Helping its correspondents analyze documents Related to Jeffrey Epstein; ProPublica reporters used artificial intelligence tools to Investigate them In rolling back diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in nonprofit organizations. On the other end of the spectrum, editor V luck He has I produced hundreds of stories Written by Amnesty International.

ProPublica employees have mixed opinions about AI in the workforce, Campbell says. (The union represents editorial staff such as reporters and editors as well as development and product staff.) Some employees see AI as a way to automate tedious tasks, freeing up their time to work on bigger things.

“I think there are times when it can be used ethically and fairly and accurately as a tool, but when you start replacing the work that humans do and the basic jobs that humans can do better, I think that’s the thing that some people struggle with,” Campbell says.

Above all, workers want to be protected from layoffs as a result of AI, and for workers to have input into the use of these tools as the industry and technology evolve. The union also wants public disclosures when AI is used to produce stories.

In support of the 24-hour shutdown, the guild is asking readers and the public not to visit ProPublica, click on stories, or interact with ProPublica content on other platforms and partner organizations. ProPublica management did not immediately respond to a request for comment.