The new owners of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette plan to recognize the paper\u2019s labor union, officials from the Maryland-based nonprofit Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism confirmed Thursday.<\/p>\n
According to a statement from Andre Jones, Chief People Officer at the Baltimore Banner, the Venetoulis Institute\u2019s other newspaper, the nonprofit \u201cdecided to recognize the union in accordance with labor law.\u201d<\/p>\n
The move represents the start of a new chapter in the ongoing, tangled labor history of the Post-Gazette. Andrew Goldstein, president of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, found the message encouraging.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a really good first step, and it\u2019s the kind of, I think, good-faith showing that we have not seen from Post-Gazette ownership and management for really more than a decade now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Members of the Guild had been on strike for three years over an unfair labor practices dispute against the Block family, who previously owned the paper. The union returned to work at the end of last year, after a court decision ordered the owners to return to bargaining. In January, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal brought by the Blocks of a lower court order to reinstate the workers\u2019 healthcare. The Blocks decided shortly after that they would close the paper altogether. Their last publication day was set for the beginning of May, before the Venetoulis Institute announced<\/a> this month that they would buy the paper from the Blocks.<\/p>\n An article in the Banner<\/a> maintained that under an asset sale like this one, the Venetoulis Institute wouldn\u2019t be required to recognize the union\u2019s existing contract. Questions also still remain about how many members of the Post-Gazette\u2019s staff will be kept on, as the new owners have indicated cuts are forthcoming. But so long as the majority of staff retained are members of the bargaining unit, as opposed to management or non-covered employees, the Guild will remain the official bargaining representative of the new workforce, Guild lawyer Joe Pass clarified to WESA last week.<\/a><\/p>\n Goldstein says the process of re-interviewing staff is ongoing. He noted that staff haven\u2019t heard a lot about how the transition process between the Blocks and Venetoulis will take place.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aIt’s still very much an anxious time,\u201d he said. \u201cI know that Venetoulis on their side are working very hard to figure this out in a very brief amount of time that they’ve had to go public with this, and then figure out how they’re going to take over here. \u200aReally, it’s all happening in less than a month’s time.\u201d<\/p>\n He said he looks forward to the union\u2019s upcoming conversations with Venetoulis. Attorneys with the nonprofit have reached out to the union to schedule a meeting. Venetoulis officials have also acknowledged Pittsburgh\u2019s labor history, Goldstein said.<\/p>\n \u201cAs Institute representatives told me they were going to recognize the union, they also noted that Pittsburgh is a union town, and I think a lot of credit for that has to be given to not only the support that we received during the strike, but also the support we’ve received since then, since the Blocks said that they were going to close the Post-Gazette,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n