Workers who have been on strike for 22 months at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette gathered outside the company’s North Shore newsroom on Thursday afternoon for a news conference about the National Labor Relations Board’s request for a federal injunction that could put them back to work and make some of them whole for health care costs.
The rare request for a 10(j) injunction — Wilson v. PG Publishing — was filed by the NLRB’s Region 6 Director Nancy Wilson and appeared just before 7 p.m. Wednesday in the online system of U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, Downtown.
Strikers and union leaders on Thursday spoke about appreciating getting their day in District Court soon. Striking photojournalist Steve Mellon spoke first and described “the stand we’re taking and the price we’re paying.” That includes forgoing a paycheck for nearly two years, ordering pizza instead of going out to eat and hoping your car doesn’t break down because you don’t have the money to repair it.
Mellon continued, “It’s 22 months of waking up at 3 a.m. … staring out into the dark and asking yourself some disturbing and crucial questions: ‘If I’m not a working journalist, who am I? If I can’t provide for my partner, for my family, for myself, what is my worth, what is my value?’ “
As reported in the Pittsburgh Union Progress strike paper Wednesday night, the request asks for a federal judge to stop the PG from breaking federal labor law with the four striking unions, and asks the judge to order the company to:
• Immediately bargain collectively and in good faith with the unions, upon their request, for contracts and health insurance benefits.
• Immediately rescind any or all of the unilateral changes that the company unlawfully implemented in July 2020 and “restore, honor and continue the terms” of the parties’ 2014-17 collective-bargaining agreement. That would include the company making all prospective increased health care insurance payments required by the Western Pennsylvania Teamsters and Employers’ Welfare Fund, in accordance with the
December 2019 arbitration award on this issue.
• Make whole the affected employees in the pressmen’s, typos’ and mailers’ unions
for any direct or foreseeable financial harms caused by the loss of health benefits, including prospective reimbursement for out-of-pocket medical and substitute
health insurance expenses, suffered as a result of the company’s unlawful bad-faith bargaining and unilateral changes.
“These were our demands from even before day zero,” said striking interactive designer and Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh President Zack Tanner. The PG’s illegal behavior “was purely vindictive,” he said, as the strike could have been avoided for about $60,000 but could potentially cost the company millions of dollars more than it’s already paid its lawyers.
“This 22-month fight has been absolutely just and absolutely righteous,” he said, adding later, “We’re going to win, and we’re going to win big.”
A dispute over the health insurance coverage of the production unions — representing the pressmen, mailers and advertisers — is what precipitated their strike on Oct. 6, 2022. The journalists, represented by the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, went on their own unfair labor practices strike that Oct. 18.
An administrative law judge ruled overwhelmingly in favor of the journalists in January 2023, but the company appealed. The injunction is temporary relief while that case and others are pending before the NLRB.
The PG could comply with that 2023 order at any time. Meanwhile, it’s expected that a judge could rule on the injunction request in a matter of weeks to months. If the judge rules fully in favor of this request for an injunction, about 60 striking workers could be back to work in a matter of days and bargaining for new contracts and health care coverage.
The NLRB’s filing states that “unless restrained, [the Post-Gazette] will continue its aforesaid unlawful acts and conduct.”
Photojournalist Emily Matthews talked about how she and her fellow journalists just want to get back to doing journalism, which she appreciates having continued to do with the Pittsburgh Union Progress strike “paper.” “Thank you to everyone continuing to read and subscribe to the Union Progress. Keep doing it until we’re back to work,” she said.
Third-generation PG mailer James “Hutchie” VanLandingham talked about how hard it has been for strikers to make ends meet. But advertising worker Kitsy Higgins said, “The tides are turning and they’re turning in our favor” — to cheers from the crowd of about 60, including representatives from Pittsburgh news sites and TV and radio stations.
Despite how the company mistreats them, she added, “the workers still have a voice.”
No one from the PG was present or could be seen even watching from the third-floor office windows. Higgins got more cheers when she gestured back to the building and said, “We’re going to be fighting until we walk up those steps.”
If the Block family that owns the company doesn’t comply with federal law, said international NewsGuild-CWA President Jon Schleuss, “We’ll see them potentially in jail if we have to.” In the meantime, he urged the public to support the strikers via www.unionprogress.com/donate.
PG spokesperson Allison Latcheran and co-owners John Block and Allan Block could not be reached for comment Thursday evening, but the Union Progress welcomes hearing from them about the company’s response to the injunction request specifically and the strike generally.
On Thursday evening, the newspaper reported in its story about the injunction request, “A Post-Gazette management statement issued Thursday says the injunction petition may conflict with a separate ruling made in July.
“ ‘The lawsuit is being reviewed by management but appears to be contrary to a recent NLRB administrative law judge’s decision,’ the statement read. ‘The administrative law judge found that the Post-Gazette bargained in good faith over health care’ ” with the advertising union. This was the past July, when the same judge ruled that the PG did not bargain in good faith with that union over a new contract.
In its news release about the filing, the NLRB quoted Wilson as saying, “Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is legally required to come to the bargaining table and bargain in good faith over these issues with its employees’ union. The NLRB will continue to defend workers’ right to collectively bargain, including seeking an injunction. We ask the Court to quickly grant the injunction.”
The Union Progress’ Karen Carlin contributed.
RELATED STORY: A start to the end of the strike? Feds file for temporary injunction to return Pittsburgh news unions to work
Bob, a feature writer and editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, is currently on strike and serving as interim editor of the Pittsburgh Union Progress. Contact him at bbatz@unionprogress.com.
