The National Labor Relations Board on Friday affirmed what striking Pittsburgh journalists already had been told by an administrative law judge: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has been breaking federal labor law in numerous ways.
Friday’s 28-page ruling supports the findings of that judge’s January 2023 ruling, but as it did with that ruling, the company is expected to appeal the five-member board’s ruling in the case.
So the journalists, who with advertising workers as well as pressmen and mailers, have been on strike since October 2022, continue to wait for an injunction that could end the strike, at least temporarily.
The NLRB Region 6 office in Pittsburgh last month filed a request in U.S. District Court of the Western District of Pennsylvania for an injunction that would compel the company to do what the NLRB’s administrative law judge already ruled: namely, take the journalists back to work under the terms of their last contract and negotiate in good faith for a new one, while also giving the other workers health care coverage.
The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh’s lawyer Joe Pass and guild President Zack Tanner said that Friday’s “board decision” by the Washington, D.C., board strengthens their case, as well as expands the remedy that the NLRB seeks.
As described by an NLRB spokesperson, “The Board further ordered that the employer compensate the union for all bargaining expenses incurred while the employer engaged in bad-faith bargaining through September 8, 2020; compensate employee negotiators for lost earnings while attending bargaining sessions; make employees whole for the unlawful unilateral changes to their terms and conditions of employment; and make delinquent contribution to applicable benefit funds.”
The company’s lawyers are expected to appeal to U.S. Circuit Court within 30 days. That’s separate from the request for the injunction that would enforce the NLRB’s rulings that’s now in a U.S. District Court judge’s hands.
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.
