Photo via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
PHILADELPHIA—After more than three years on strike against the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and five years of overall corporate violation of labor law, The News Guild of Pittsburgh, TNG-CWA Local 38061, completely won its case against the Block brothers, the paper’s owners.
Writing on Nov. 10 for a unanimous panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, Judge Cindy Chung—the former U.S. Attorney for Western Pennsylvania, headquartered in Pittsburgh—ordered the Blocks to bargain and reach a contract with the Guild, just as the National Labor Relations Board demanded in seeking an injunction, a mandatory court order, against the duo.
Judge Chung also ordered the Blocks to restore the better health care plan for the workers which they unilaterally abolished in July 2020, end the illegal impasse they declared in negotiations, restore the 40-hour workweek and paid time off, and take back all the strikers and make them whole—by repaying them for all out-of-pocket costs they shouldered to keep themselves and their families alive.
The judge also ordered the Blocks to pay attorneys’ fees and court costs which the News Guild racked up during what became the longest current strike in the U.S., and the longest strike in the Guild’s 91-year history. “The Circuit Court ruling completely corners the Blocks’ union-busting operation,” the Guild statement said.
About the only penalty the Blocks escaped was what they would suffer if they defied this court order, too, just as they had defied the National Labor Relations Board’s administrative law judge, the full board, and the federal district judge who tried the case.
About a year ago, at the National Press Club, with then-NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo listening during a panel discussion about labor law, News Guild President Jon Schleuss suggested that if the Blocks defied this court, too, they should be marched off to jail for contempt of court.
But there’s little chance of the Blocks successfully appealing Judge Chung’s order, said Moira Bulloch of CWA communications. Because the three-judge ruling was unanimous, that avenue is closed.
Post-Gazette strikers outside the Block mansion. | Mark Gruenberg / People’s World
Schleuss didn’t go quite as far this time in praising Chung’s decision, but he said it should send a tough message to other corporate chieftains who defy and break labor law against their workers.
“The Blocks’ shameless attempts at union busting failed again,” said Schleuss. “What the Blocks—and all owners like them—need to understand is they cannot break the law.
“We are stronger, braver, and more principled than any boss can possibly imagine. The News Guild stands ready to support every journalist and all members in whatever it takes, however long it takes.”
“Ever since Post-Gazette management ripped apart our contract in 2020, our union of journalists has been standing and fighting the lawless union-busting that we’ve been subjected to every step of the way,” said Pittsburgh News Guild President Andrew Goldstein, an education reporter on strike.
“When we walked out on strike in October 2022, it wasn’t just for us and our rights as workers, we were fighting for fair treatment for the future journalists in Pittsburgh and beyond. Today’s victory vindicates our fight and shows News Guild workers will never back down no matter how long it takes.”
“Let this be a lesson to the bosses and the bullies who think they can starve working people into submission: When we stand together, we have the power, the tenacity, and the will to win,” added CWA President Claude Cummings.
“I am immensely proud of our strikers for their righteous victory today, and also of members and retirees from across our union and the labor movement who stood in solidarity, donated, and sustained our strikers for three long years. When we fight together, we win together.”
That included a demonstration in front of the Blocks’ mansion during the CWA convention in Pittsburgh earlier this year. Chung pulled no punches against the Blocks. Excerpts included:
The National Labor Relations Act “provides it is an unfair labor practice for an employer ‘to refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of [its] employees.’” To determine if the employer violated that mandate, “the totality of a party’s conduct is relevant.” While the law does not mandate the boss must “make concessions or yield on a genuinely held position, ‘rigid adherence to disadvantageous proposals may provide a basis for inferring bad faith.’
“Where the employer’s proposals leave the union members with substantially fewer rights than the law would provide them without a contract, an inference of bad faith may be appropriate.”
“Substantial evidence supports the finding PG Publishing bargained in bad faith.” Its “proposals as a whole would have required the Guild to cede…the most fundamental of employment terms. For instance, PG Publishing could encroach on the Guild’s jurisdiction by subcontracting work and PG Publishing would have unilateral control over work hours.”
The Blocks’ own last offer “vastly expanded the expired agreement’s no-strike clause and scaled back employees’ healthcare. Guild members would have been afforded more rights working without a contract than by accepting all of PG Publishing’s proposals.”
“PG Publishing’s bad faith in finding impasse was prematurely declared.” It hadn’t even acknowledged, much less responded to, the Guild’s counterproposals on wages and benefits, among other issues.
The Blocks legally couldn’t contest the make-whole remedy for the workers—which included reimbursing them for health insurance costs, credit card bills and rent they paid or loans they took out to keep themselves and their families alive during the fight and the strike. The Blocks had to contest that remedy in U.S. District Court—the trial court—Chung said, and didn’t.
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