BY JOHN SARGE
DETROIT - Newspaper strikers here launched a new campaign on December 30, "Shut Down Motown `97." Hundreds of strikers and their supporters blocked the street in front of the downtown Detroit printing plant of the Detroit News and Free Press. Other recent actions have targeted Metro Detroit airport and downtown traffic at rush hour.

"After 18 months on strike, all the actions we have taken have not brought us closer to getting a contract," Kate DeSmet, a striking journalist, told the press. "We believe that it is time to take a more aggressive route. This campaign is about disrupting the lives of people who have shown little interest in resolving the strike."

This campaign follows new government attempts to limit the unionists' ability to confront the companies. In late November, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced plans to seek contempt citations against the striking unions for failing to abide by an agreement reached last July on picket line behavior. That "agreement," reached under threat of legal action, said strikers must not "restrain, threaten or coerce replacement workers or any employees of the Detroit Newspapers, Detroit Free Press, or the Detroit News because they choose to cross a picket line."

The NLRB, which still has not ruled on numerous unfair labor practice charges filed by the unions early in the strike, was reportedly preparing charges against the striking unions for efforts to discourage advertisers from using the newspapers. The government agency was also seeking legal action against the unions for a rally outside the southeast Michigan printing plant of USA Today, the national newspaper owned by Gannett, the owner of the Detroit News.

Some 2,500 editorial, production, and distribution workers, organized in six unions, went on strike July 13, 1995, against the two daily newspapers, the News and the Free Press, and their joint business agent, the Detroit Newspaper Agency (DNA). Some 2,000 workers are still out, fighting to protect jobs, wages, working conditions, and their right to negotiate jointly. The UAW distributed more than 1,200 checks to active strikers over the holidays. To qualify, a striker was required to participate in regular strike activity - picketing, leafleting, helping at the food bank, or working at the Sunday Journal, a weekly tabloid that the striking unions help publish.

DeSmet, a member of Newspaper Guild Local 22, reported that the Metropolitan Council of Newspaper Unions, made up of presidents and business agents of the striking unions, signed a new agreement with the NLRB December 27, requiring the striking unions to have a picket captain at every line, responsible for enforcing the July agreement. Any violation could cost the local unions $5,000 and the strikers involved $500. Strikers are supposed to sign a copy of this settlement within 30 days.

The companies continue to refuse to make any offer that could end the strike. There are negotiating sessions with the different locals, but management holds to their position that most strikers have been permanently replaced and that the unions must accept all of the bosses' demands.

Workers keep up pickets, boycott
The newspapers continue to try to intimidate strikers. Workers report that more than 275 members of the six unions have received letters discharging them for picket line "misconduct," which includes anything the companies claim violates the July NLRB agreement.

In face of company intransigence and NLRB moves, the strikers have kept up picket lines at the editorial offices and printing plants. They leaflet businesses that are still advertising in the scab papers and continue to organize a readers' boycott of the papers, as well as other actions to keep the strike in the public eye.

Over the fall, strikers organized protests of up to 200 at stores that advertise in the struck papers. Unionists wearing T-shirts urging a boycott of scab advertisers paraded through the offending businesses. One hundred fifty strikers and their supporters delayed the shipping of the southeast Michigan edition of USA Today on September 23, by picketing the Port Huron printing plant that produces the paper.

Strikers are also campaigning to get the AFL-CIO International Executive Board to call a national labor mobilization in support of the Detroit strikers. A "Detroit Strikers' Appeal for a National Labor Action," signed by 840 strikers, was made public December 7 at a conference of 200 strikers and their supporters at Wayne State University.

"Now that the national election campaigns are over, we are appealing to unions around the country and supporters of our strike to join us in urging AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and the Executive Council to reconsider [a national labor action]," the appeal states.

This call has been endorsed by the Metro AFL-CIO; the striking unions; United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 876, an 18,000 member union representing retail clerks across Michigan; and a UAW Region 1A leadership meeting.

But there is not unanimity on the way forward for the strike. Top officials of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the Newspaper Guild (which is in the process of merging with the CWA) have proposed to offer an unconditional return to work. International union officials and some strikers claim that such an offer, while bringing down the picket lines, would start the clock running on back pay once the unions win their NLRB charges.

The newspapers continue to be hurt by the strike. They admit that circulation is down 34 percent; strikers speculate a much greater loss in readership.

The strike has widespread support among working people in this area. Circulation figures report readership losses of up to 75 percent in some heavily unionized areas. Strike support lawn signs stand in front of thousands of workers' homes across southeast Michigan. Detroit News and Free Press boxes are gone from most large unionized factories and been replaced by suburban daily boxes at some, including in the heart of Detroit, just minutes from the newspaper offices.

The strikers have set up a rotating series of dinners at union halls across the region to raise money for the strike. Locals are holding regular raffles and collections. Solidarity has extended across the border with union locals in Ontario, Canada, organizing fund-raising efforts and speaking engagements.

Those who want more information, including getting strikers to visit their area, can call the strike headquarters at (313) 877-9016.

John Sarge is a member of UAW Local 900.  
 
 
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