Amid internal uncertainty, the VTDigger’s new union contract guarantees journalists’ input on AI use

After a year of negotiating, the VTDigger Guild ratified its second-ever union contract on April 1 with VTDigger, the nonprofit news outlet covering Vermont. The new four-year agreement guarantees a 32.5% increase to the minimum salary for reporters, more paid time off, and journalists’ input on the use of artificial intelligence. Here’s what the contract announcement says about AI: Provisions on use of generative artificial intelligence that include: - At least 60 days notice to the Guild of intention to use a new generative AI system that will have a meaningful impact on terms and conditions of employment of bargaining unit employees in their performance of their work - The ability for the Guild to negotiate effects of AI introduction, enhanced severance of four additional weeks per year of service (and a minimum of 12 weeks) for layoffs directly and primarily due to the use of generative artificial intelligence - Ability to withhold byline or raise ethical objection to use of AI in an employee’s work - The creation of a committee made up of Guild members and VTDigger staff members who are not in the Guild to make recommendations for the organization’s AI usage policy. The policy will include an editorial review process to determine which editorial content is subject to the policy and an acknowledgement that generative AI tools do not adequately substitute for human judgment in the creation, distribution and promotion of journalism. A story published Thursday by The Boston Globe reports that VTDigger is struggling. CEO Sky Barsch is leaving after three years on the job, along with editor-in-chief Geeta Anand, who joined last year. VTDigger brought in $2.7 million in revenue in 2024, and increased that number by roughly 10% in 2025, Globe media reporter Aidan Ryan writes, but ” has been operating in the red since just before its founder left in 2022, and the chief executive who succeeded her is now leaving. Meanwhile, VTDigger is in the market for its third top editor in just over a year after a bruising contract negotiation with the newsroom union.” VT Digger has more than 9,000 paying members. “The current mishegas, stemming from acrimonious contract negotiations with Digger’s union over the usual (pay and benefits) as well as how AI will and won’t be used, is a consequence of what sounds like a poisonous relationship between the two sides,” media analyst Dan Kennedy wrote Thursday. While Barsch told Ryan she isn’t leaving because of what happened at the bargaining table, “there were hard moments.” Meanwhile, the piece cites “a number of reasons for [Anand’s] departure, including the challenging contract negotiations, Barsch’s decision to leave, and a health issue that she had been dealing with.” Digger founder Anne Galloway — who left the nonprofit in 2022 — was more candid. “If the guild continues to be unreasonable like this, news organizations like Digger will go out of business,” Galloway told Ryan. “It’s going to be hard to attract good leadership with the kind of antagonisms that have become so endemic to the organization.” According to the Globe, negotiations became tense when the guild started publicly campaigning for AI protections. Per Ryan: Amid the fight, a Reddit post called on people to “target” Barsch, editor Geeta Anand, and VTDigger board members, according to Galloway and Kevin Ellis, a former Vermont Journalism Trust member. “When you’re using that kind of language in a Trump environment, that’s frightening,” Ellis said in an interview. (The word “target” was later changed, Vermont’s Seven Days reported.) Norm Welsh, administrator of the Providence News Guild, which represents unionized VTDigger employees, maintained that the talks were “relatively smooth.” “I think it was a normal course of negotiations,” Welsh said. “I don’t think anything was meant personally.” The VTDigger Guild is the latest newsroom union to push back on companies’ embrace of AI. Last month, the ProPublica Guild voted to authorize the first U.S. newsroom strike over AI protections. In November, an arbitrator found that Politico violated its contract with its unionized journalists when it rolled out two AI-powered editorial products. As of last month, 58 newsroom unions under the NewsGuild had some form of AI protections in their contracts. Read the full story in The Boston Globe here.