The Vermont Journalism Trust and the VTDigger Guild, a unit of the Providence Newspaper Guild that represents VTDigger’s newsroom employees, have reached agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement.
The four-year deal was ratified in March by Guild members and by the board of the nonprofit Vermont Journalism Trust, which operates VTDigger. The contract, which was signed Tuesday, provides increases to wages and to minimum salaries, provides avenues for employees’ continued professional development, and provides protections and means to discuss the use of artificial intelligence.
Leaders from VTDigger and Guild representatives said both bargaining teams worked hard to find common ground and reach agreement.
“We’re proud to reach an agreement that reflects our shared commitment to fair pay, professional growth, and a strong newsroom,” said VTDigger Chief Executive Officer Sky Barsch. “As a nonprofit newsroom, every dollar we raise is reinvested in our work — including supporting the people who make our journalism possible and serve Vermonters every day.”
“We’re grateful to VTDigger’s leaders for meeting us at the table so we could arrive at this deal together,” said Erin Petenko, co-chair of the VTDigger Guild and vice president of the Providence Local. “This package will support the reporters who produce VTDigger’s journalism every day by building on the important rights and benefits included in the first contract. Because of that, it will make our journalism stronger.”
The Vermont Journalism Trust and management voluntarily recognized the union in April of 2020. The first contract expired Dec. 31, 2024, and the two parties have been negotiating a contract since November of that year.
Contract highlights include:
- A 32.5% increase to the minimum salary for reporters, from $40,000 to $53,000, and a 6% increase to the minimum salary for editors, from $50,000 to $53,000, retroactive to January 1, 2025.
- A raise to the new minimum or a raise of 7% for those making less than $60,000, whichever is larger, retroactive to January 1, 2025.
- A wage increase of 4% for employees making between $60,000 and $65,000 and 3% for employees making more than $65,000, retroactive to January 2025.
- Retroactive to January 1, 2026: A wage increase of 3.5% for employees making between less than $60,000 and 3% for employees making more than $60,000.
- Wage increases of 3.25% for all employees as of January 1, 2027 and 2028.
- An increase in paid time off from 31 days to 34 days.
- An avenue to provide feedback in the hiring process for the Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor.
- Up to $300 annually for each member to attend a conference, training or professional development opportunity.
- Travel, meals, accommodations and work time paid by VTDigger for attendance at trainings or conferences required by management.
- 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; and 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.
- Creation of a trial, joint Guild-management Professional Development Council with a $1,500 annual budget.
Bargaining unit members include staff reporters, photographers and editors working in non-supervisory roles. Reporting fellows become members of the union after their first year at VTDigger.
VTDigger Guild is a part of Providence Newspaper Guild, TNG-CWA Local 31041. The NewsGuild, a member of the Communications Workers of America, represents thousands of journalists across the country, including at the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and digital-only publications like Buzzfeed and The Daily Beast.
VTDigger is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom covering issues of statewide importance in Vermont. A digital pioneer, VTDigger was founded in 2009 and has grown from a one-woman newsroom to what many consider Vermont’s news organization of record. VTDigger makes its originally reported news available to a dozen community news organizations around the state. Its budget of $3.2m is primarily funded through voluntary reader donations.
