BY JOHN SARGE AND HOLLY HARKNESS

DETROIT - During the month of March public activity in support of the Detroit newspaper strikers, which had taken a downturn since the end of last year, increased. The new mobilizations have focused on civil disobedience by religious figures and some elected officials in front of the struck facilities, which have led to the arrests of 150 people in March.

Six unions, representing some 2,500 workers including press operators, mailers, drivers, reporters, typographers, and maintenance workers, walked out July 13 against the Detroit Newspaper Agency, which manages the advertising, circulation, and other business operations of the city's two main dailies - the News and Free Press. The unionists struck to protect jobs, wages, working conditions, and their right to bargain jointly with the newspapers. Nine months later, more than 2,000 remain on strike.

The company has hired scabs and brought in hundreds of goons to guarantee its ability to maintain production.

In the largest mobilization since Thanksgiving, 700 people converged on the Detroit News Building the morning of March 6 to protest the employers' union busting. Most protesters carried out a spirited picket line. At the same time, 24 elected officials and religious figures refused to move from the doors of the building's parking garage and were arrested by the police.

This action was followed March 14 by a protest of 500, billed as a "Women's action in support of striking newspaper workers." Forty-four women, including strikers' wives, leaders of the National Organization for Women, and local politicians, were arrested for blocking access to the doors of the News garage.

These actions were the first in a series organized by Readers United, a group of religious figures and pacifists organized last summer to build support for the strike. Its leaders said they called the protests to refocus public attention on the walkout.

A discussion on the state of the strike took place March 7 at a "Town Hall Meeting" sponsored by Readers United. The group invited both union representatives and company officials to attend.

"Robert Giles has declined to come tonight," said Shea Howell, the chairperson of the event, referring to the publisher of the News. "He said the community already knows the position of the Detroit News and Free Press. He said he's ready to negotiate if the unions are reasonable in their demands."

Strike had become less visible
Many participants said the strike had become less visible over the past few months and that more public actions of solidarity were needed. Others condemned the Detroit News Agency's recent ads, which tout the company's commitment to "racial diversity" in the workforce.

On March 14 a group of 40 Teamsters from Quebec were blocked from crossing the border by U.S. customs agents as they tried to deliver a $10,000 donation to the strikers. They held a protest and blocked traffic for 30 minutes at the Ambassador Bridge, which links Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.

Some 300 people turned out March 30 at a strike support rally called by the Labor/Religious /Community Committee of the Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO, the first action called by this group since December.

The striking unions have set another rally for April 14 at Cobo Hall, the city's convention center.

The new round of mobilizations has buoyed the strikers' spirits. "These demonstrations and rallies strengthen the strike," said Armand Nevers, a typographer at the News for 35 years. "We need to be out more to win this strike."

In the late fall, officials from the striking unions decided to downplay solidarity actions. Instead, the focus of strike activity shifted to a consumer boycott of advertisers in the scab papers and the production and distribution of the Sunday Journal, a weekly newspaper financed by AFL-CIO unions and produced by strikers.

Over the winter months, picket lines shrank. "Our strategy is that the strike is fought on many different fronts," said Shawn Ellis, a striking member of Teamsters Local 372. "People were moved from the strike lines to areas that are as important - to work on the Sunday Journal and boycott activities. We always picket in Sterling Heights. We picket some distribution centers and downtown [the editorial offices] most days." The Sterling Heights plant was the site of the largest mobilizations last fall and is the one location where the newspapers got a court injunction to limit picketing.

The upturn in activity has led to strengthening of the picket lines at the editorial offices.

Strikers spend many hours working on the Journal. Time to produce the weekly is considered the same as doing picket duty. But the Sunday Journal is not published as a strike organizing tool. The paper has averaged one page of strike coverage a week.

What is `Sunday Journal'
Its purpose, according to union officials, is to provide a weekly replacement for the struck papers. Aside from union issues, the Journal's editorial stance differs little from most big-business dailies. In its stated effort to provide "solid and balanced journalism," the Journal has run articles reporting favorably on the defense campaign for two police officers convicted of beating to death Malice Green, an unemployed steelworker who was Black. The paper has also endorsed the dispatch of NATO troops to Yugoslavia and promotes company-union cooperation in the auto industry.

Most strikers, however, see the publication of the Journal as an important part of their fight. "There's three things that will win this strike," said Armand Nevers at the March 7 town hall meeting. "The Sunday Journal, the advertiser boycott, and a national march on Detroit that would shut down the papers in Sterling Heights and downtown Detroit." Many working people here buy the Journal as an act of solidarity.

Meanwhile, strike support actions organized by the labor movement on the local level continue to take place on a modest scale. United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 160, which represents workers at the General Motors Technical Center in suburban Detroit, held a fund-raising dinner at its union hall March 12 that netted $12,000 for the strike on top of the $39,000 already collected by union members.

John Sarge is a member of UAW Local 900 in Detroit. Holly Harkness is a member of UAW Local 235 in the same city.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home