The News Media Guild’s bargaining team met with The Associated Press this week to discuss the technological and editorial units.
Here’s what we talked about on the tech unit:
The Guild gave the company a heads-up that it was drafting a technology training letter ahead of the proposed merger of the tech support teams. The merger won’t happen until one year after the ratification of a new contract, but in the interim, the Guild is working to ensure employees will receive the proper training in preparation of the change.
The Guild then provided a rewritten Job Security proposal, the training side letter and a rewritten job description for a new Technical Support Specialist job after the meeting.
The Guild raised concerns about recent tech job postings that it allowed to be posted. It contains preferred job skills the unit may not be familiar with. The company said those skills would simply be an extra benefit and that they were part of job postings more than 10 years ago. AP will provide proof to support that. The union has pressed hard for the hiring of some new employees because staff is overworked.
The Guild requested the company provide information about how it’s using Artificial Intelligence (AI) inside the tech unit. The company said it does not use automation to replace tech workers.
And here’s what we talked about the editorial unit:
The Guild and the company are close to coming to an agreement on the new social media policy. The company is reviewing the final language before officially closing that issue for bargaining.
The Guild yet again asked for an answer to its proposal to dissolve the News Associates section in the contract. The company again said it wasn’t ready – but acknowledged for the first time that they were working on that as part of its economic proposal. The Guild will continue to press this.
The Guild and the company briefly talked about the use of AI inside the editorial unit. While the company was unable to answer many of the questions, the Guild reminded the company that it had held an AI townhall earlier that day and said managers are anticipating AI being a bigger part in news and AP. David Scott said that the company has been actively hiring more employees and continues to be in the “business of adding journalists.” The Guild will continue to press this issue and will submit proposals to add to our contract.
The guild was represented by Vin Cherwoo, a sports writer from New York; John Braunreiter, a customer support specialist from Milwaukee; Kim Kruesi, a newsperson from Nashville, Tenn.; Bobby Caina Calvan, a newsperson from New York; Mike Warren, an editor from Atlanta; Edward Morsett, a senior technician from Glendale, Arizona; and administrator Kevin Keane.