I think they're rattled for another reason, too - although, full-disclosure here, I've been out of the AP since 1996 when I retired.
HOWEVER - when it was the Wire Service Guild (and I see it's changed now to News Media Guild so I'm not sure what the contract allows anymore), which it was when I worked there, it was almost impossible to be fired. That's one of the reasons I grabbed that job offer when they presented it. Long story, won't bore you, but...
The Wire Service Guild contract was A-FUCKIN'-MAZING!!! For broadcasting, for any media, for any contract. If you made permanent there, which you did after you survived a nine-month probation period, you were GOLDEN. You were like a tenured teacher. They could NOT fire you. We regarded it as like being in the Army. "Three-square a day and they can't fire you." Meaning - you did NOT aspire toward riches by working at the AP, BUT you had a pretty decent regular salary that kept food on your table and the wolves away from the door, AND the all-important JOB SECURITY!!!! I'd never heard of any such thing in my professional experience! Air talent was something that could be flitched off at a moment's notice, for no reason, out of the capriciousness of whatever management was there or had just flown in from Oklahoma City or some such place and thought they knew EVERYTHING about running a radio station in L.A. For example, I had one job from which I got fired after the ratings went UP. Go figure.
Soooooo... when I saw that "they can't fire you after you make permanent," I RAN, did not walk, to grab it. It meant management couldn't fuck with me anymore. They could nitpick you nearly to death. They could memo you and annoy you and overwork you and you had to settle for less pay for a harder job than your peers at the fancy network stations with the big salaries and exposure and ego glory (and no job security). We used to refer to it as "being eaten by ants." BUT THEY COULD NOT FIRE YOU. Unless of course you gunned down half the people in the building or something else really seriously awful. Sounded like a fair trade-off to me.
So if AP employees are getting fired, either the contract's been changed, OR this is one of those "something else really seriously awful" things that allowed for dismissal. And that will shake up a newsroom like the AP's, like nobody's business. There are lifers there. I worked with a woman whose 40-year party was held. They gave her a special pin in honor of that many years of service, and they had several denominations of them. Believe me, she had one of every denomination (for every five years). It was one of those increasingly rare jobs, even at this late date, in which you could hire on and then plan to settle in for the long term. You could work there til you retired. I lasted nine years - indeed the longest I'd spent at any job I'd ever had before.
I'm not so sure it's like that anymore, though. But there's enough of that mentality still inbred at the AP. You can settle in. You can make long-range plans. And you can get to feeling rather comfy, especially as you see your friends at the big radio stations and networks victimized by layoffs and downturns and management changes and ownership changes and flakiness in the market and flakiness in the ratings, and watch the heads roll down the corporate halls while you, on the other hand, were safe. I'm sure there are still those comfy feelings that come with job security - such as it is - at the AP, even if new guild contracts and changing times start messing with those things. So when there are firings - especially at an organization not accustomed to such things, it's REALLY shaking them up. But good.
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