BY CINDY JAQUITH
DETROIT - Support for the newspaper workers on strike takes many forms here beyond the picket lines seen nationwide on television. Below are a few of the creative actions of strikers and their supporters to get out the truth about their struggle.
When Roslyn Carter, wife of former president Jimmy Carter, came to town, strikers were ready for her. Roslyn Carter serves on the board of Gannett, owner of the Detroit News. Her visit featured a lecture on "care-giving" at a fancy event cosponsored by the Detroit Free Press.
Some 1,000 people turned out for the September 12 lecture in Southfield, a suburb of Detroit.
Each person received a brochure from striking journalists of the Newspaper Guild explaining their battle with Gannett and Knight-Ridder, according to Kate DeSmet, a striker who used to write on religion for the News. The brochure suggested Carter consider "care-giving" by adopting a striker's family with five children.
Several striking journalists and photographers also attended a press conference by Carter. One striker, well- known columnist Susan Watson, asked Carter if she would bring the strike to the attention of the Gannett board and if she would meet with the strikers.
Carter responded with "a frozen look," said DeSmet, and said she "would consider it."
Many participants in the strike have been disturbed by incidents where scabs, cops, or security guards are called racist or sexist names by some individuals on the picket line. The words "cotton-picker" and "boy" have been occasionally directed at Blacks, while some scabs thought to be from Mexico have had such things as "Show us your green card" yelled at them as they are bussed past the picket line.
The problem has been discussed at several meetings of the Labor/Religious/Community Coalition to Support the Newspaper Strike, which has organized mass pickets on Saturdays and other activities.
At the Saturday, September 23, picket line, a flyer from the coalition was distributed. "We are union!" the flyer began. "Think about what that means, sisters and brothers.
"It means black, white, brown, yellow or red; man or woman; foreign born or American born; christian, muslim, or jew; gay or straight; autoworker, Teamster, communications worker or whatever...
"What we do must build this unity," the flyer explained. Strike supporters must "build our fight against the [Detroit Newspaper Agency] and its corporate and political allies, not divide ourselves and play into their hands.
"When some of us in anger call out to scabs using racial or ethnic slurs, degrade them as women or for being foreign born; the scabs aren't hurt, but our sense of unity, our ability to be strong in Union, is hurt.
"This isn't some politically correct sermon, this is
common sense."
Musicians of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra said "no way"
when a photographer for the scab Free Press tried to take
pictures of their rehearsal September 13.
When the photographer was identified as a scab, the musicians held a meeting and decided they would not permit any photos of themselves to appear in the Free Press. They also decided to donate $1,000 to the Metropolitan Council of Newspaper unions. The musicians are organized by Local 5 of the Detroit Federation of Musicians.
Some 100 Catholic priests and nuns, along with Thomas Gumbleton, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit, signed a half-page ad printed in the Macomb Daily, circulated in Sterling Heights and other suburbs.
The ad stated, "Viewed from our Catholic teachings, the permanent replacement of striking workers by the Detroit newspapers in wrong."
Three prominent ministers who are Black - Wendell Anthony of Fellowship Chapel and a leader of the Detroit NAACP, Jim Holley of Little Rock Missionary Baptist Church, and Robert Smith of New Bethel Church - sponsored an ad supporting the strike in the Michigan Chronicle, one of Detroit's two Black newspapers.
Cindy Jaquith is a member of United Steelworkers of America Local 1299.