Striking Pittsburgh Post-Gazette workers got a few boosts of solidarity Friday to end their week on a high note.
On Friday morning, striking workers were joined on the picket line by over a dozen of their union siblings from the AFL-CIO and the Pennsylvania State Education Association.
AFL-CIO and PSEA members led some pro-union chants, waved at passing cars and got many to honk in support of fair contracts, and popped into the striking workers’ morning check-in call to extend their support to members who weren’t on the picket line.
They also brought down coffee and doughnuts from Dunkin’, fueling the picket line well into the afternoon.
Later Friday, Pittsburgh Restaurant Workers Aid posted a statement pledging support for the striking workers and declaring that it will not speak to the PG until the strike ends. Instead, PRWA said it will speak to striking workers who are producing the news.
PRWA also encouraged workers across Pittsburgh’s food service and restaurant industries to do the same.
“We hate to see bosses anywhere publicly disrespect their workers, especially when those workers are rightfully defending and building on the protections that others before had to fight for,” the PRWA statement reads in part.
The statement also urged community members to cancel their PG subscriptions until striking workers’ demands are met and to send a letter to the paper’s owners, asking them to stop bargaining in bad faith.
PG workers and the company are scheduled to meet Tuesday for their third negotiation session since the strikes began in October. The first two sessions yielded no progress, as PG representatives rebuffed attempts to bargain in good faith and continued to offer the same contract that the unions declined in 2020.
Newsroom workers at the PG have been on strike since Oct. 18, while distribution, production and advertising workers walked off the job in the early-morning hours of Oct. 6.
Alex is a digital news editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike.
