BY HOLLY HARKNESS
DETROIT - "A little truth-telling, even if it seems to give ammunition to striking workers, is in order here," said Crain's Detroit Business in scolding the Detroit Newspaper Agency for refusing to allow an audit of its circulation for the 10-week strike period.
The Audit Bureau of Circulation, a nonprofit association representing 4,200 newspapers and magazines, advertisers and ad agencies nationwide, had requested the audit. It provides the circulation figures to advertisers interested in purchasing ads in print media.
Since the beginning of the strike by six unions at the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press, strikers have disputed the company's circulation figures. The unions estimate, for example, that some 300,000 readers have canceled their subscriptions. The company says the number is only 100,000.
The company began publishing both daily papers September 18 for the first time since the strike began in mid-July. The move was designed to show readers and advertisers that things were "back to normal" despite the strike. But their stonewalling on the audit raised eyebrows even among their friends in business circles.
"That Detroit Newspapers has declined an ABC audit suggests the numbers are worse than advertisers and readers have been led to believe or that distribution has been so random that no one really knows how many papers have been delivered," Crain's wrote in a September 25 editorial. "In any case there's an integrity issue here. Newspapers are supposed to be in the business of telling the truth, regardless of how unpalatable it may be."
With negotiations at a virtual standstill and an injunction limiting pickets at the main printing plant, the striking unions and their supporters have stepped up their campaign against retail stores advertising in the scab papers. Each week a different chain is targeted and leafleting teams hit as many outlets as possible. Significantly, Farmer Jack and Kroger, the two largest grocery store chains in this area, have kept their ads out. Montgomery Ward recently pulled its ads as well. But many other large retailers continue to advertise.
Solidarity is growing
Union support is growing. In the first out-of-state trip
to win support for the strike, John Castine, a Newspaper
Guild reporter, spoke to 85 Minneapolis unionists September
25. Castine was given more than $10,000 in donations to the
strike fund from the Twin Cities Central Labor Council.
Detroit Guild members will be speaking to unions in Boston
and Seattle in the coming week.
Two semi-trailers rolled up to the strikers' food bank on September 28 with much-needed donations of food, including 1,500 hams, courtesy of the Pennsylvania Conference of Teamsters. "We fought the Pittsburgh Press battle here a few years ago, so we feel a special allegiance to newspaper strikers out there, " said conference president John Morris. Pennsylvania Teamsters plan another shipment this week.
The next day a truckload of food arrived from Teamsters Local 715 in Chicago.
Strikers on the picket line September 30 expressed frustration at the lack of progress in the negotiations. But when asked how the unions' struggle is going, the response was upbeat.
"I think we're stronger now than when the strike began" said Mike Pasella, a mailer from Teamsters Local 2040. "You get stronger when you have this much support behind you.
"I've been going to the car haulers' picket lines on my days off from picket duty and if I hear of anyone else going out on strike, I'll be there too."
Saturday all-night pickets continue
On Saturday nights the unionists target distribution
centers where the Sunday edition is parceled out to delivery
trucks and carriers. Picket lines are smaller than the mass
mobilizations at the Sterling Heights plant in early
September, but they have succeeded in delaying trucks for
several hours.
Darlene Chippewa and Tracey Neubacher work at the Priority Mail Center in Romulus, where Chippewa is a shop steward for the American Postal Workers Union (APWU). With Saturday nights off, they've been coming to the picket line at the DNA's distribution center in Southfield.
"There aren't any papers at work," said Chippewa, referring to the widespread boycott of the two dailies. Occasionally a diehard sneaks in a sports section, and his co-workers take him to task for it.
"I come out to keep the crowds big, to keep the cops from attacking," said Scott MacDonald, a union carpenter, as he walked the line at the Clayton Street distribution center in southwest Detroit, October 1 about 6:00 a.m.
Clayton Street was MacDonald's third picket line stop that night. Union picket captains had dispatched several hundred pickets to several distribution centers after they had gathered at the Riverfront printing plant. When trouble broke out at Clayton Street, MacDonald, who'd been at the Southfield distribution center, eagerly responded to a call for help even though it was 3:00 a.m. and he had no idea where Clayton Street was.
What had alarmed picket captains at Clayton was an aggressive move by Vance Security. For the first time since the strike began, two dozen of the company's hired guns, dressed in riot gear, advanced outside the gate to attack pickets.
"All of a sudden they formed a column and came out. I think they'd been itching to do it all night They had their truncheons out," said Kevin Cesarz, a copy editor and member of the Guild. Detroit policeat the scene did not stop the attack. Angry pickets drove the goons back inside the gate.
"Our guards moved out to make a pathway to bring the vehicles in. There was no provocation," said Tim Kelleher, vice president, of Detroit Newspapers.
But videotapes of the incident broadcast on Sunday evening TV newscasts showed a different picture. "We finally got on videotape the proof that they've been violent to us," said striker John Collier, whose footage was broadcast on local stations.
Detroit City Council President Maryann Mahaffey was at the Clayton picket line all night to support the strike and observe the Detroit Police Department's conduct. "There were strikers who were arrested, but I didn't see scabs arrested, and that I find very disturbing," she said.
Meanwhile, Macomb County prosecutor Carl Marlinga has announced that he is conducting a criminal investigation into the activities of the strikebreakers at the Detroit Newspapers Sterling Heights plant on the night of September 2- 3. The probe will center on the incident at 3:00 a.m. September 3, when a delivery truck rammed a locked gate, injuring one striker who was pinned under the gate. Marlinga said the charges could range from conspiracy to commit assault to conspiracy to commit murder.
Holly Harkness is a member of the United Auto Workers in Detroit.