PITTSBURGH—Almost 22 months after the right-wing owners of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette forced the Pittsburgh News Guild and five other unions to strike, workers won a key point when the National Labor Relations Board wielded its strongest cudgel against the law-breaking bosses: An injunction demand in federal court ordering them to immediately take the workers back and make them whole.
The board’s 10(j) injunction demand covers cases where such a court order is “needed to protect the process of collective bargaining and employee rights under the [National Labor Relations] Act and to ensure that Board decisions will be meaningful,” the NLRB’s injunction says.
The board has sought only four such injunctions this year. They’re sought and granted only where there would be “irreparable harm” to the workers without such a federal court order.
The rarely used injunction demand comes when traditional NLRB pro-worker remedies for bosses’ labor law-breaking don’t solve the problem, don’t get the workers back to work, and don’t deter the bosses from continuing to break the law in their union-busting efforts.
That’s the case in Pittsburgh, where the Block brothers, owners of the paper, rejected an NLRB administrative law judge’s order early last year to stop breaking the law by unilaterally cutting off health care benefits. First, the brothers tried to impose a premium increase and refused to bargain with the unions which represent the paper’s workers about that move. They also froze or cut pay. And they reduced vacation benefits for News Guild of Pittsburgh members.
All that has forced the workers to walk picket lines in the longest strike in Pittsburgh history and the longest newspaper strike in decades.
If a U.S. District Court judge in Western Pennsylvania approves the injunction demand, at least 60 current workers, the Guild members, would get their jobs back. And all forced-out workers would get their health care expenses paid—if the Blocks obey the judge. The Blocks defied the NLRB’s administrative law judge last year, though, illustrating the weakness of U.S. labor law.
Could face imprisonment
But if the Blocks disobey a District Court order, they could face fines or even prison. A Wisconsin federal judge, in a case involving another industry, sent defiant co-owners of that company to jail.
The Blocks, who have an intrafamily battle going over control of their papers, also have a nasty history with their workers, both at the Post-Gazette and at the Toledo Blade in Ohio. It took 17 years for News Guild workers there to gain their latest contract.
And when the Trumpite invaders and insurrectionists stormed and pillaged the U.S. Capitol three and half years ago, the Blocks came down to the Post-Gazette newsroom and ordered stories rewritten to portray the invaders in a friendly light. That prompted a byline strike by the Guild.
The board’s injunction demand said the Blocks failed and refused to bargain in good faith on new contracts with the paper’s six unions, including the Pittsburgh News Guild, a Teamsters local, and unions for press operators, typographers, and mailers. The Guild’s old pact expired seven years ago. The Guild added unfair labor practices to the list of union complaints. The Teamsters later settled with the Blocks, taking buyouts and dissolving their Post-Gazette local.
The key issue that splits the Blocks from the workers is a management-imposed $19-a-week hike per worker in health care premiums. When the workers voted that down, the Blocks retaliated by forcing everyone out—and cutting off health care. The injunction would order the Blocks to restore the old healthcare coverage, revoke the hike, and bargain over future increases.
The NLRB also demands the Blocks make all the workers whole for any health care costs they’ve had to shoulder since the bosses forced them out. And the Blocks must post the NLRB’s order in the Post-Gazette building and have it read aloud to the workers while managers are forced to listen, plus mail or e-mail it to every past or present worker.
The Blocks also must send sworn affidavits to NLRB Regional Director Nancy Wilson and the judge who will decide the case within 21 days of a ruling, telling the two how the Post-Gazette is obeying the injunction.
Since the Blocks forced the workers to strike, they’ve been living on strike benefits from CWA, $781,000 in contributions from around the U.S., and temporary jobs they’ve been able to find.
Zack Tanner, a striking Post-Gazette interactive designer and Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh president, told the Pittsburgh Union Progress—the workers’ strike paper—that he’s happy the workers will get their day in court. “It’s really exciting that this is coming down finally,” he said. “You can see from the size and scope of it how much the P-G is breaking federal law.”
Marian Needham, Executive Vice President of the News Guild-CWA, said in a statement, “We are hopeful the Blocks will not demonstrate the same contempt for the federal courts they have shown their employees and this entire bargaining process. We are resolute in our intention to bargain a fair settlement for our members, and we will continue to fight until we get there.”
“With the money the Post-Gazette has spent on anti-union attorneys, private security firms, printing the paper at the Butler Eagle, which we estimate to be close to $12 million, they could have given every employee a raise and funded the health care instead of terminating it,” Printing Packaging and Production Workers Local 24M/9N President Chris Lang said in a news release.
“This is the beginning of our eighth year in negotiations, and hopefully the 10(j) injunction will bring all of this nonsense to a close. The employees have given their lives to this company and deserve that respect.”
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