If the Maine newspaper guild wants to find out what happens when you force a company’s hand, it should take a look at what just happened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s owners announced Wednesday the paper will be shutting down in a few months, citing financial losses, according to The Associated Press.
Block Communications Inc. announced it will cease publication on May 3.
The paper is printed on Thursdays and Sundays and says on its website the average paid circulation is 83,000.
A couple dozen union members returned to work at the Post-Gazette in November after a three-year strike.
More than five years ago, the newspaper declared it had reached a bargaining impasse with the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh and unilaterally imposed terms and conditions of employment on those workers.
The paper was later found to have bargained in bad faith by making offers that were not intended to help reach a deal and by declaring an impasse prematurely.
The announcement that Block was shutting it down came on the same day the U.S. Supreme Court declined the PG Publishing Co. Inc.’s emergency appeal to halt an National Labor Relations Board order that forced it to abide by health care coverage policies in an expired union contract.
In Maine, the newspaper union at the state’s largest publication, the Portland Press Herald, six months ago told the publisher it wants higher wages for employees at the paper’s sister publications.
If that is a “demand,” it could prove to be a fool’s errand that might force the financially-pressed National Trust for Local News to slash the news budget even further.
The trust bought the state’s largest newspapers in 2023 and has since faced financial struggles, including nearly 50 layoffs.
The job cuts came amid continuing managerial shakeups across the trust’s Maine newspaper holdings.
Since buying a Maine newspaper chain from Reade Brower the trust has shown millions of dollars in losses.
As a major step to regain financial stability, the Denver-based trust last year sold 21 of its 28 Colorado newspapers to the Arizona-based Times Media Group.
The Maine newspaper guild may want to be careful what it wishes for…