{"id":30942,"date":"2025-11-11T10:35:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T10:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/30942\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T10:35:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T10:35:14","slug":"third-circuit-court-of-appeals-rules-for-striking-pittsburgh-journalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/30942\/","title":{"rendered":"Third Circuit Court of Appeals rules for striking Pittsburgh journalists"},"content":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on Monday morning ruled for the journalists of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh in the federal case behind their more than three-year strike at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. <\/p>\n

The three-judge panel hearing the case ruled against the PG\u2019s petition for a review of its order this spring that the PG restore a health care plan that was considered a major victory for the workers. Writing for the panel, Judge Cindy Chung concluded that \u201cwe will deny the petition for review and grant the application for enforcement\u201d of the National Labor Relations Board ruling for the strikers in September 2024.<\/p>\n

The judges affirmed that, per that NLRB ruling, which upheld an NLRB administrative judge\u2019s ruling in January 2023, that the PG acted unlawfully by contract bargaining in bad faith and in declaring an impasse to contract negotiations and imposing conditions.<\/p>\n

Now the PG must restore the previous contract, including the journalists\u2019 health care coverage, and bargain with the union for a new contract, at the union\u2019s request, before making changes to employees\u2019 terms and conditions of employment. Restored will be bargained-for provisions the company had eliminated or reduced, such as a guaranteed 40-hour workweek, short-term disability time, paid time off and the right to fight discipline from managers and more.<\/p>\n

Further, to paraphrase the NLRB, the PG must make employees whole for the loss of earnings and other benefits, and for any other direct or foreseeable pecuniary, or monetary, harms suffered as a result of the unlawful unilateral changes to their terms and conditions of employment; make whole any affected employee negotiators for any earnings lost while attending bargaining sessions during the time that the PG engaged in bad-faith bargaining; compensate the union for all bargaining expenses it incurred during the time that the PG engaged in bad-faith bargaining; make delinquent contributions to the applicable benefit funds; and post a remedial notice to employees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the coming days, a lot will be happening, including a vote by the striking workers on when to return to work. But leaders of the local and its parent union, the NewsGuild-CWA, are saying this is the win the union prepared for during the longest ongoing strike in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we walked out on strike in October 2022 it wasn\u2019t just for us and our rights as workers. We were fighting for fair treatment for the future journalists in Pittsburgh and beyond,\u201d said Andrew Goldstein, striking education reporter and Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh president. \u201cToday\u2019s victory vindicates our fight and shows that NewsGuild workers will never back down, no matter how long it takes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The release acknowledged the consistent \u201cinvaluable support\u201d of community members, including more than $1 million in donations, and boycotting the newspaper, which is owned by the Block family.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Blocks\u2019 shameless attempts at union busting failed again,\u201d NewsGuild-CWA President Jon Schleuss said in the release.<\/p>\n

\u201cStriking this long is what standing up for ourselves and the many voices of Pittsburgh required,\u201d said Natalie Duleba, striking copy editor and page designer and the Guild\u2019s local secretary. \u201cThe relationships we\u2019ve forged as striking journalists with each other and this community are invaluable. We plan to keep and strengthen them when we return to the Post-Gazette.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the strike continues as the strikers demand that the PG follow the court\u2019s order, which the local posted on its website: https:\/\/pghguild.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/gov.uscourts.ca3_.123742.100.0_1.pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The court declined the NLRB\u2019s petition to hold the PG in contempt for not following its order to restore the journalists\u2019 previous health care plan, but Judge Chung wrote, \u201cWe clarify that this Court\u2019s\u00a0March 24, 2025, order, No. 24-2788, ECF No. 57, paragraph (c), requires that PG Publishing revert health insurance coverage for unit employees to the coverage provided prior to the unilateral implementation of terms \u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

The PG can petition the same panel of judges for a rehearing within 14 days, and it could technically seek to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, but union leaders said they didn\u2019t expect those actions to be fruitful.<\/p>\n

A telephone call and email to the PG for comment have not been answered.<\/p>\n

In a story posted on Monday evening on its website, the PG reported: <\/p>\n

\u201cIf the ruling is allowed to stand, the company said in a statement issued Monday evening that the decision\u00a0\u2018will likely force the closure of the Post-Gazette \u2014 ending nearly 240 years of continuous service to the people of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

\u201c \u2018We will appeal to the\u00a0full Third Circuit Court of Appeals,\u201d the statement said. \u2018We believe this ruling goes against both Third Circuit and Supreme Court precedent, and we are hopeful that the full Court will recognize the serious errors in the panel\u2019s decision.\u2019 \u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This story will be updated as it develops. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The PUP is the publication of the striking workers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on Monday morning ruled for the journalists of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[19613,19614,19615,73,75,74,11360,2957],"class_list":{"0":"post-30942","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-journalsts","9":"tag-newspaper","10":"tag-newspaper-guild","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","13":"tag-pittsburgh-news","14":"tag-post-gazette","15":"tag-strike"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}