Pittsburgh Post-Gazette strike reaches 1 year with little progress made

A year into a tumultuous strike, negotiations between journalists and workers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and management remain at a standstill.

Journalists are tired and frustrated, management isn’t budging, and no date is set for a looming decision on a labor ruling that could change the course of the lengthy strike.

Howard Stanger, a labor history professor at Canisius University in Buffalo, said the Post-Gazette strike is “sort of stuck in neutral.”

“It is the same issue as before and both parties have dug in,” Stanger told the Tribune-Review. “Now they wait for the slow-moving wheel of justice. The unions are showing resolve, which is good, but there is no contract.”

The strike has essentially become a waiting game for a panel to rule on an appeal of a National Labor Relations Board decision made earlier this year.

A NLRB judge ruled in January that the Post-Gazette violated federal law by bargaining in bad faith with its journalists’ union. The judge ordered the paper to end the impasse it declared in 2020, undo changes to working conditions, restore the guild’s 2017 contract and start bargaining within 15 days.

The Post-Gazette appealed the ruling in March. The matter has yet to be addressed by a five-member NLRB panel.

If the newspaper loses that ruling, it could appeal to federal court and further delay any resolution.

Union leadership acknowledged that movement has stalled, but believes the strike is accelerating NLRB decisions. Management has not commented beyond its appeal, but is still trying to curry favor with advertisements in the paper reminding readers that the majority of workers didn’t join the strike.

In the interim, the ranks of the striking members have been thinning, with journalists either crossing the picketing line or taking other jobs in Pittsburgh or across the country.

Union members have been conducting pressure campaigns to shame workers who crossed the picket line and management. Stanger said those strike tactics are fairly typical, but it’s not clear how effective they are.

He said without major pressure to affect the bottom line of the paper’s ownership, there is nothing really stopping the strike from continuing in perpetuity.

“Unless the union and community can affect the owners’ bottom line, then we will be talking about a year and half anniversary of this strike before you know it,” Stanger said.

How it started

The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, which represents journalists at the Post-Gazette, went on strike on Oct. 18, 2022.

The guild joined other unions representing production, distribution and advertising workers that had gone on strike earlier over a lack of pay raises for 16 years. The unions said management refused to bargain in good faith and made unilateral changes to their health care plan.

The guild said management cut journalists’ wages, took vacation time away from veteran workers and forced employees into a health insurance plan that offered less coverage for a higher price.

It went on strike after a 38-36 vote, but Stanger said the guild was going to strike anyway in accordance with Communication Workers of America union guidelines.

CWA is a national union that represents hundreds of thousands of members, including the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh. Stanger said the close vote was about whether the guild should have local control over the strike or if the national union should run the strike.

Although the vote did not determine the strike, it showed the strike hardly had unanimous support among Post-Gazette journalists. The day after the strike began last October, about 30 journalists crossed the picket line.

That number has increased over the past 12 months. Zack Tanner, president of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, said there are now 35 guild members on strike out of about 90 total members.

Many other striking journalists have taken jobs elsewhere.

1 year in

Journalist Alex McCann worked in the Post-Gazette newsroom for more than three years before going on strike. He also served as secretary of the guild.

McCann left the Post-Gazette in March while still on strike. He took a job as a digital editor at the Portland Press-Herald in Maine.

As a member of guild leadership at the time, he said it was “an extremely tough decision” to take a job elsewhere, but as a 26-year-old, he had to think about his career.

Striking journalists have been supported by a strike fund and weekly payments from the CWA, but it is less than most can make working another full-time job.

McCann blamed his departure on Post-Gazette ownership — namely John and Allan Block, who own the Post-Gazette’s parent company, Block Communications Inc. He said the unions’ demands are not extreme and the Blocks could meet them easily and end the strike.

The Post-Gazette did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Tanner said the strike has caused other young and talented journalists to leave the Post-Gazette and Pittsburgh altogether.

Tanner said the guild is still holding rallies and doing pressure tactics to get the union’s 2017 contract reinstated. He said the guild has had “a good handful of bargaining sessions” with management this year, but he didn’t offer specifics on the talks.

Teamsters Local 205 business agent Joe Barbano said his union is going through the same stalemate. The Teamsters deliver and distribute Post-Gazette print editions and went on strike with Teamsters Local 211, the Communications Workers of America Locals 14842 and 14827 and Pressmen’s Union Local 24M/9N in October 2022.

“The progress is zero,” Barbano said. “There has been no progress.”

The teamsters have met with management eight times during the strike and the union has offered concessions, but there hasn’t been any response, he said.

The Post-Gazette recently placed an ad in its print edition with a banner headline reading “The Truth Behind the Strike.” The ad said the majority of Post-Gazette workers never went on strike, there are 100 journalists working in its newsroom, and the paper has won awards since the strike began and still publishes stories daily.

The ad also directs people to a website that shows management’s perspective on negotiations, particularly involving the dispute over health care plans.

The unions aren’t seeing movement in negotiations, Tanner said, but he believes the strike has helped expedite the NLRB ruling. It also should help speed up the appeal process, he said.

“It is unquestionable that the strike is accelerating the speed of these rulings,” he said. “It is hard to wrap our heads around that considering how long it has gone on.”

Shifting dynamics

If the Post-Gazette’s appeals are rejected, Tanner said, the guild’s 2017 contract would be restored. It also would bring back the Teamsters’ health care for workers.

He said an appeals rejection won’t bring a new contract to the guild but will require the former contract to be enforced. Guild workers have not seen a raise in over a decade.

Tanner acknowledged that the guild has tried to pressure journalists who crossed the picket line and editors who are not part of the union. Among the tactics used, striking guild members used social media to flood the accounts of journalists who crossed the picket line. The strategy led to some public arguments on social media and raised tensions between workers.

Some disagreements have gotten personal.

It will be hard to come together again when the strike ends, Tanner said. But he said he believes reinstating the old contract could go a long way in mending relationships.

The prolonged Post-Gazette strike shows a shift in labor relations for print media, Stanger said.

In the past, strikes involving print media typically revolved around production workers, but now newsroom workers are becoming the focal points of labor disputes.

Stanger said the distribution workers have been forced to make major concessions over the past several decades. With the Post-Gazette down to just two days of print editions per week, the bargaining power is shifting.

“The main bargaining power is now in the newsroom,” Stanger said.