The Pennsylvania Superior Court has ruled that striking union workers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette were legally allowed to picket on company property and did not violate labor law by conducting pickets on Pittsburgh’s South Side.
The decision by a three-judge panel filed Wednesday is the latest in a string of legal losses by the company, which has been cited by the National Labor Relations Board for a series of unfair labor practices before and during a strike by five unions that began in October 2022.
The company appealed a decision by the Allegheny County Common Pleas Court that denied its request for an injunction to end picketing at a warehouse it uses two nights a week on the city’s South Side to distribute newspapers using replacement workers.
“This affirms again that the workers on strike have been in the right and that the Post-Gazette continues to throw money away and burn it on legal cases rather than negotiating with employees,” said Zack Tanner, president of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh.
Tanner noted that an administrative law judge ruled in January 2023 that the company had bargained in bad faith for more than five years, causing the unions to go on an unfair labor practice strike. The company has appealed that order and refuses to bargain with the four unions that remain on strike, prompting the board to authorize filing an injunction that would order employees back to work. That injunction is still being prepared.
In the picketing case, the company claimed the workers were causing violence at the warehouse and were preventing the company from using its property in violation of trespassing laws. The court disagreed, saying the workers were “wholly peaceful” and short-term pickets didn’t result in an illegal taking of company property.
An appellate court previously overruled a Butler County court that limited picketing by Post-Gazette strikers at the Butler Eagle, where the PG is paying to have its paper printed.
Tanner said it is time for the Post-Gazette to negotiate rather than continue to file court cases “where they continually lose.”
Ed covers transportation at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at eblazina@unionprogress.com.