NewsGuild’s Jon Schleuss on AI, Global Solidarity and Organizing Wins

Jon Schleuss, President of the NewsGuild-CWA, joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast fresh from Paris, where he attended the International Federation of Journalists Centenary Congress and was elected to the organization's executive committee, one of 22 leaders chosen from across 100 countries. The trip gave Schleuss a global perspective on the threats facing journalism: AI consuming and repurposing journalists’ work without compensation, billionaires consolidating media ownership and governments undermining public service media.

Back home, the NewsGuild is fighting for ethical AI protections at major outlets, supporting laid-off journalists in Los Angeles who are building an independent publication with the Communications Workers of America backing and celebrating organizing wins at the University of Chicago Press, Hachette Books and WildEarth Workers.

• Schleuss was elected to the International Federation of Journalists executive committee at the organization's World Congress in Paris, where 280 delegates from 100 countries gathered amid shared anxiety about AI-generated misinformation, billionaire media consolidation and the United States' diminished global standing on press freedom. He said he plans to use his seat to export the NewsGuild's organizing playbook to journalist unions in other countries.
• The NewsGuild has secured ethical AI contract language at outlets including Ziff Davis and CalMatters — prohibiting AI-driven layoffs and salary reductions, requiring human oversight of AI in newsrooms, protecting journalists' identities from AI impersonation and mandating clear labeling of AI-generated content. Meanwhile, the NewsGuild continues to negotiate with the New York Times and ProPublica, which have refused comparable guardrails.
• Approximately 130 workers at the University of Chicago Press have announced their intent to form a union with the Chicago News Guild and around 600 workers at Hachette Books are organizing with the Washington-Baltimore News Guild. This brings the NewsGuild's total to roughly 730 workers in active publishing house campaigns. That is part of a broader wave that has seen more than 120 newsrooms and 7,000 to 8,000 media workers organize in the past eight years.

From Paris to Publishing Houses: The NewsGuild Is Fighting on Every Front

Jon Schleuss grew up in Harmony Grove, Ark. and had no idea what a union was until he was already working as a journalist and watching his pay and benefits erode in real time. His colleagues suggested organizing. He said sure, and learned on the job. A decade later, he is the president of the NewsGuild-CWA and was just elected to the International Federation of Journalists’ executive committee at a World Congress in Paris attended by 280 delegates from 100 countries.

A Global Perspective on Press Freedom

The IFJ World Congress event provided Schleuss a sobering view of what journalists face around the world. Hundreds of journalists have been killed in Palestine. Dozens murdered in Mexico. Governments are dismantling public service media. Drone attacks and bombings are affecting reporters in Bahrain. The courage of the union leaders he met in Paris, he said, put the challenges facing American journalism in a different context.

What those delegates shared with their American counterparts, however, was anxiety about the same forces: billionaires gobbling up CNN, CBS and other major outlets; AI consuming and repurposing journalistic content without compensation; and the United States increasingly seen as an unreliable partner on press freedom and international aid. AI was the dominant conversation at the Congress. There was a global fear that the technology is scraping journalists’ work worldwide, spreading misinformation and providing no compensation to the people who produced the original content.

Schleuss was elected to the IFJ executive committee, one of 22 leaders chosen globally, and plans to use the role to build solidarity across borders and share the union organizing strategies the NewsGuild has developed in the United States.

The AI Fight at Home

Back in the United States, the NewsGuild is in the middle of a defining battle over how artificial intelligence is used in newsrooms. Schleuss described two very different camps emerging among media companies. On one side are outlets like Ziff Davis, publisher of PC Mag and nonprofit news organization Cal Matters. These outlets have agreed to contract language that prohibits AI-driven layoffs and salary reductions, requires human oversight of AI tools in the newsroom, protects journalists from having their identities and voices impersonated by AI and mandates clear labeling so readers know when content was AI-generated. Those are the good agreements, Schleuss said, and they matter enormously at a moment when AI-generated misinformation is spreading rapidly.

On the other side are the New York Times and ProPublica, both of which have refused to agree to comparable ethical AI guardrails. Schleuss described those fights as ongoing and significant. The NewsGuild's campaign, summarized in its slogan “We Demand News, Not Slop,” reflects a conviction that unionized journalists are the last line of defense between readers and a media landscape flooded with AI-generated content that no human vetted.

CWA Stands Behind Laid-Off LA Journalists

One of the most striking stories Schleuss shared involves journalists in Los Angeles who were not hired by a new media owner, a decision the union believes was driven by anti-union discrimination. Rather than leaving those workers without support, the Communications Workers of America made a direct commitment. It is paying each of them the equivalent of a strike payment, $500 a week for six months, along with healthcare coverage, to give them a runway to either find new employment or build something new.

What they are building is ourpapernow.org, an independent news publication in the early stages of development. The team has a business plan, has been holding community town halls and is raising funds to launch. Schleuss described it as a genuine union story: workers targeted for their union activity, backed by their union through the consequences and given real resources to keep fighting.

Organizing Wins: Publishing Houses and Nonprofits

The NewsGuild organizing pipeline remains full. Around 130 workers at the University of Chicago Press have announced their intent to unionize with the Chicago News Guild, joining a growing list of academic and independent publishers that have organized with the union in recent years alongside Oxford University Press, Duke University Press and Verso Books. At roughly the same time, approximately 600 workers at Hachette Books filed to organize with the Washington-Baltimore News Guild, bringing the NewsGuild's total to 730 workers in active publishing house campaigns.

In New Mexico, WildEarth Workers, a nonprofit environmental organization, ratified their first contract after being voluntarily recognized in 2023, locking in pay increases, standard benefits and job security for roughly 10 workers whose mission is environmental advocacy. The win is part of the Denver-based Rocky NewsGuild's expanding footprint.

In the past eight years, more than 120 newsrooms and somewhere between 7,000 and 8,000 media and journalism workers have organized with the NewsGuild, Schleuss said. That wave is not slowing down.

More information is available at newsguild.org.

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