Three years of attempted bargaining, three years of going to the picket line and three years of being unpaid because their job cannot follow the law and adhere to a fair contract.
This is the reality of the journalists who should be working at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PG), the biggest newspaper in the Pittsburgh region, but are instead on strike because the PG has avoided accountability and wants to put good people’s working livelihoods on the line.
However, this could all be slowing down thanks to judges on the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in favor of the striking journalists, not the PG.
And none of this is surprising. No matter how many times the PG tries to appeal – which the newspaper has said it will again – justice prevails and the plainly obvious fact of the PG bargaining in bad faith gets mentioned every time.
What the Block family, who own the PG and the Toledo Blade, another newspaper, don’t seem to understand is that Pittsburgh will always be a union city. It doesn’t matter how comfortably the Blocks can sit in their fancy houses and go to expensive galas, the people who don’t sit around — and who do the hard, actual labor — will always find a way to prevail, even if it is slow moving.
Funny enough, the PG has said to go back to the strikers’ contract of 2017, repealing five years’ worth of workers’ rights violations, would mean the newspaper could potentially close.
Our response? Good.
Normally, The Globe would not want to see any long-standing institution of journalism fall, but the PG has already proven it is too far gone to go back to a media outlet that can serve all people of Pittsburgh.
It shall forever be known as a newspaper which routinely breaks labor laws, panders to hateful individuals and silences people it deems as too critical. Because firing comic artist Rob Rogers for being critical of President Donald Trump and trying to justify racism in a 2018 editorial was surely a smart move.
Granted, we do support PG journalists on strike who plan to go back to the PG – legally, they are entitled to do so. However, we do have concerns with how they may be treated at a workplace which does not have their best interests in mind.
And we do acknowledge how many former staff members of The Globe became PG journalists, especially those who are still there. For those still on strike who want to celebrate, every current staff member and editor at The Globe is celebrating with you. Regarding the former Globe staff who are still at the PG but not on strike, we do not support scabs, and we effectively do not claim you.
This is the sad reality – working at the PG now despite everything that has gone on may as well be an automatic stain on one’s journalistic career.
Until the PG inevitably gets denied more appeals, let’s all remember to watch this closely. And to the broader Point Park University community, please stop reposting articles from the PG.
