The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh on Wednesday launched a campaign around newspaper subscriptions to boost support for its workers’ strike against the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
The campaign, “Our money vs. their mouths,” calls on Post-Gazette subscribers to pledge to cancel their subscriptions if PG representatives fail to bargain in good faith with the guild’s bargaining committee.
For those who do not subscribe — whether they have unsubscribed due to the strike, have not bought a subscription because of the longstanding labor disputes at the PG or simply have not paid for the PG — the campaign asks them to pledge to subscribe once the striking workers’ demands are met and they return to work.
The campaign notes that the goal is to urge the PG’s owners, Block Communications Inc., “to do the right thing, bargain fairly for a new contract, and for us to win the caliber of news our community deserves.”
The campaign also asks readers to follow the Pittsburgh Union Progress until the strike ends to support the striking PG workers.
The guild’s bargaining committee is scheduled to meet with representatives of the PG on Monday morning at the Omni William Penn Hotel in Downtown Pittsburgh.
PG management and the guild last met for contract negotiations in September 2020, some 3½ years after the last collective bargaining agreement expired in March 2017.
The PG declared an impasse in contract negotiations in July 2020 and imposed new working conditions on union journalists. Those conditions rolled back workplace protections that provided job security, took away vacation time from some of the PG’s veteran employees, and moved workers onto a health care plan that offered less coverage at a higher price.
The guild has filed unfair labor practice charges alleging that the PG’s unilateral declaration of an impasse was illegal, that the company’s representatives bargained in bad faith, and that guild members were illegally surveilled during protected union activity.
A dayslong hearing on the charges was held in September and October; the judge has not yet issued a ruling.
Returning to good-faith bargaining with the aim of reaching a new CBA is one of the guild’s demands of the PG to end the strike so journalists can get back to their jobs. The guild is also demanding that the PG end the impasse and revert to the terms of the prior CBA until a new one is reached, and that the company meet the health care needs of the other striking PG unions.
Alex is a digital news editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike.
