Healthcare, pay which matches industry standards and a fair contract: these are not unreasonable demands.
Yet, striking workers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PG) have still not been able to reach an agreed contract guaranteeing these demands.
In three days from The Globe’s publishing this week, journalists and copy editors at the PG will mark three years on strike — the longest continuing strike in the country. In that timeline, the PG has not bargained in good faith and, despite legally being found in violation of national labor law, continues to appeal to higher courts as if its disregard for the law isn’t obvious.
Currently, these striking journalists are waiting for a ruling from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia for two cases related to the strike.
One is the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)’s federal case for the strikers, and the other is the NLRB’s petition for the company to be held in contempt for not restoring the health insurance which was yanked away from its workers in 2020.
This did not all happen in a vacuum, or start on Oct. 18, 2022.
Block Communications, which owns the PG, switched health insurance companies unexpectedly in Jan. 2022 from Anthem to Aetna, causing problems for journalists at the PG as well as the Toledo Blade, a publication in Ohio.
Employees at both publications noted problems fulfilling prescriptions and insurance cards not working at doctor’s appointments, all without approval from either union. Counter this with problems in 2020 and a contract, which hadn’t been negotiated since 2017, and the problems become even more glaring.
To put it simply, this strike has shown that Block Communications think journalists in Pittsburgh, Toledo and beyond are not worth sticking up for and should deal with mistreatment. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
And unfortunately, the effects of the strike go beyond just the people who take a direct hit from not working. Student journalists in Pittsburgh no longer have an easy opportunity to get a job after graduation.
The “norm” was to be in student media and take the T to the North Shore to go to the PG, whether it was for an internship or an immediate job after graduation. That opportunity is soured, tainted and gone.
While The Globe unanimously supports striking journalists, we also realize the union itself is not perfect. When chairs are thrown at walls during negotiation meetings and people in the union turn the other way when its leaders mistreat people and disobey boundaries, that’s a problem which needs to be addressed just as much as the strike.
But, far and away, the problem is the PG, and institutions like Point Park University who speak with, share and otherwise endorse its federally illegal labor practices and bad-faith bargaining.
To bargain in good faith requires the cooperation of all parties involved, including the union itself. But we will continue to stay on the side of striking journalists and share their wishes of a fair contract.
The longer the strike goes on and the longer bargaining fails, the more the reputation of the paper will continue to flounder. Journalism in Pittsburgh needs protection, not hampered by a demand to pinch pennies and to toss hard working reporters away like they don’t matter.
