Seattle Times Union on company’s AI lawsuit

“If the Seattle Times Company truly cares…it should protect the workers who produce the copyrighted material at the heart of this case,” the union writes

SEATTLE, WA (September 22, 2026) — The Seattle Times and Newsday, a Long Island publication, have sued OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming work published by the outlets has been used to train the large language model and alleging copyright infringement, claiming OpenAI is generating fake content falsely attributed to the papers.

Per reporting in the Seattle Times, newspaper President and CEO Alan Fisco told employees that the lawsuit was motivated by a need to “defend our content — which we spend millions of dollars a year to produce — from being used without our consent or compensation.”

That the Seattle Times Company recognizes the serious threat AI poses for the credibility and function of local journalism is welcome news for workers represented by the Seattle Times Union, affiliated with NewsGuild-CWA.

Members of the Seattle Times Union, part of the PNW Newspaper Guild (NewsGuild-CWA Local 37082). Photo: Seattle Times Union

However, the more than 160 union-represented workers at the paper are pointing out this lawsuit is at odds with the company’s continued resistance to including AI protections in the collective bargaining agreement currently under negotiation.

“In ongoing contract negotiations, however, the company has refused to guarantee that no newsroom jobs will be replaced by AI,” per a statement from the union. “Instead, the company has only agreed to protect reporters, ensuring that only humans (not AI) will be used to interview sources or write stories. That leaves scores of other Seattle Times jobs unprotected, jobs crucial to producing award-winning local journalism — including photographers, graphic artists, copy editors, producers and more.”

The Seattle Times Union wants language protecting all union jobs in the newsroom from replacement by AI over the life of the contract, likely three years.

“If the Seattle Times Co. truly cares about the threat AI poses to journalism’s business model, it should protect the workers who produce the copyrighted material at the heart of this case,” wrote the guild.

Readers can share their support for by signing workers’ petition for fair wages and AI protections.