ProPublica Guild Members Speak Out to Demand Fair Wages, AI Guardrails and Layoff Protections

We recently passed the three-year anniversary of our staff unionizing. Through the power of our union, we’ve realized major wins, from stability in health insurance providers and the company covering a higher split of premiums to steward representation for workers navigating an arbitrary disciplinary system.

But ProPublica management still won’t agree to a fair contract.

We continue to fight for wage increases that keep up with inflation, a transparent and fair layoff process, guardrails around artificial intelligence and more. And our members are speaking out.

It’s been three years since we formed our union. We still don’t have a contract. (Bluesky / Instagram)

A key part of our contract fight has been working to secure protections around AI, but management has largely refused to agree to such provisions. We even had to file an unfair labor practice charge after management implemented an AI policy without first bargaining with us, as they are required to do under federal labor law.

“I have heard from our managers at ProPublica that they don’t intend to replace us with AI. And that’s great. But we’re gonna need that in writing.” (Bluesky / Instagram)

As we head back to the bargaining table to try to push this contract across the finish line, we are also demanding fair wages that ensure our lowest-paid members don’t have to live paycheck-to-paycheck and all our members see their wages keep up with inflation.

“We have disparities across teams, across regions. No one who works at ProPublica — where we say we hire the best — should be living paycheck to paycheck.” (Bluesky / Instagram)

And, should ProPublica ever find itself in the unfortunate position where layoffs are necessary, our members deserve a system that is fair and transparent. We want management to take seniority into account to honor those who have given years of service to the publication.

We deserve seniority-based layoff protections that are standard across the news industry. (Bluesky / Instagram)

Dozens and dozens of ProPublica workers are releasing public testimonials to mark three years of management stalling and to explain why a fair contract is so vitally important. Here are just a few, and you can view all of them on our Instagram and Bluesky accounts.