After a one-day strike, Bellingham Herald secured raises and protections against artificial intelligence.
Following a one-day strike in May, Bellingham Herald — one of five Pacific Northwest newspapers negotiating with McClatchy Media — secured raises and protections against artificial intelligence in a new three-year contract.
“It’s not everything we wanted, but I guess we’ll take it,” said Jack Belcher, a Bellingham Herald reporter. “The AI language is pretty good. We’re still getting some money, but not much that we wanted. All in all, I think it’s just a rough compromise.”
The new deal includes:
· Guaranteed raises of 7.2% to 15.5% over the next three years, including immediate raises of 3% to 11.1%
· $52,000 minimum salary for current employees
· Ban on AI replacing staff, decreasing pay or reducing working hours
· AI cannot do union members’ work without their direct control
· Ban on mandatory production quotas in performance reviews
· Minimum annual training budget of $7,500 in Washington
· Improved just cause and discipline protections
This marks progress over McClatchy’s previous offer of a 3% sign-on bonus and a 1-year raise of 2%, according to Michael Lycklama of the participating Idaho News Guild. The only ask that wasn’t met was the minimum salary.
While Kristine Sherred, the Tacoma-based chair of the Washington State News Guild, described the new contract as a success, she said she is disappointed that McClatchy did not budge on salary.
“The company declined to address ongoing inequities with people who have too many years of experience and are just getting lost,” she said. “When you raise the bottom, but you don’t raise the middle, the people in the middle start to get squeezed, and there’s a lot of our group that’s in that boat. But ultimately there’s a lot of great stuff in this contract.”
The contract ensures reporters will get first consideration for the hiring of open roles, increased pay for interns and late-night work and that all employees are considered for annual raises.
In addition, nothing generated by AI can be published without human review, and no member can be forced to rely on AI as a source of fact. McClatchy must also disclose AI use to its readers and can no longer impersonate journalists or discipline members for a chatbot’s mistakes.
Sherred considers the new AI language in the contract as the best in McClatchy’s unionized newsrooms and among the best nationwide.
According to a press release, McClatchy’s reliance on AI has led to sloppy mistakes and damaged journalist’s credibility. For example, it falsely informed readers of sales at Washington businesses that were no longer open, and there was no reporter input or review.
McClatchy also tried to put journalist’s bylines on AI rewrites of original work, which union members refused.
Representatives of McClatchy Media, which is owned by New Jersey-based hedge fund Chatham Asset Management, did not respond to requests for comment.
While the impact of the strike is unclear, the new offer immediately followed.
“I feel the strike was impactful,” Belcher said. “I think it sends a message that we aren’t going to go down from a fight every time. And I think it was impactful, especially if there’s a lot of young people in the offices that this was one of their first strikes. And so if we need to fight harder in the future, we have some experience under our belt.”
The negotiation process among participating unions occurred for over a year, with McClatchy repeatedly making the same offer prior to the strike.
“We wish McClatchy hadn’t taken months to truly engage with us on some of our most important issues,” Sherred said. “Last summer into fall, it took months to get them to discuss AI in any sort of meaningful way. And when we finally reached the point of introducing wages, which we did for the first time several months ago at this point, they came at us with a pretty insulting initial offer that would have only raised would have only raised everyone’s wages by like 2% to begin with and then 1% each year, which is, in this day and age, just simply not enough.”
The new raise of 3% is still too low for the cost of living in the communities the newspapers serve, Sherred said.
“There are many journalists in our newsrooms, both in Idaho and in Washington, who will who will continue to question whether they can afford to stay in these jobs because their wages are really stagnating,” she said. “We have a large chunk of both of our groups who are making less than $60,000 a year in one of the most expensive states in the country.”
Belcher said he foresees a higher ask during the next bargaining session, once this contract expires.
Sherred also anticipates protections against AI is a battle that “will probably never end.”
—By Sam Fletcher