BY JOHN SARGE
DETROIT - As the strike against this city's two daily newspapers entered its 20th month, officials of the six striking unions announced February 14 that they would make unconditional offers to return to work, but planned to step up advertiser and circulation boycott activities.

On July 13, 1995, 2,500 editorial, production, and distribution workers went on strike against the Detroit News and Free Press and their joint business agent, the Detroit Newspaper Agency (DNA). Some 2,000 workers remain out. While some have found other jobs, many continue the fight.

The strike started with demands to protect jobs, wages, working conditions, and their unions' right to negotiate jointly. Today the fight is aimed at defending the right to a union, as the companies use scabs and private toughs in an attempt to break them. Hundreds of workers continue to take part in regular strike activity. Three days before the back- to-work announcement, 300 strikers and their supporters held a demonstration in downtown Detroit as part of a campaign called "Shut down Motown."

Union officials said that if the newspapers did not return strikers to their jobs, they will ask the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to seek a federal court injunction ordering the companies to reinstate all strikers, even if it means displacing the "permanent replacement workers." Management has pledged to retain the scabs. The union officials compare their scheme to the 1994-95 strike against Bridgestone-Firestone, where the union made an unconditional offer to return to work after 10 months on the picket line. Nineteen months later, in December 1996, a contract was negotiated.

If the NLRB were to rule that the newspaper strike was caused by unfair labor practices on the part of the company, the strikers would have a legal right to return to work. They would go back under the wages and conditions existing when they walked out, but without a union contract.

A NLRB Administrative Law Judge received the last legal briefs on charges filed by the unions early in the strike. He has up to a year to rule. Then the owners can appeal in federal court. If the companies eventually lose they would be liable for back pay to any striker not returned to work if scabs are retained.

Al Derey, chairman of the Metropolitan Council of Newspaper Unions, announced that the unions planned to expand the advertiser and subscriber boycott. He said the Sunday Journal, a weekly tabloid that the striking unions help publish, will continue.

Workers fired during the strike are not covered under the return to work offer. They must wait on the outcome of NLRB charges filed by the unions on their behalf. According to Gary Rushnel, a fired printer, more than 375 strikers were dismissed during the walkout.

The announcement was not a surprise to many strikers because rumors had circulated that a return to work was being discussed by the international presidents of the Teamsters, Communication Workers of America (CWA) and the Graphic Communications International Union. The presidents of the three unions made the decision at a meeting on February 11. The only local union whose members were allowed to vote on the offer was the Newspaper Guild Local 22. The international officers of the other unions made the final decision for those locals. Guild international president Linda Foley circulated a letter urging adoption of the approach by Local 22.

John Stolnicki, a mailer before the strike and member of Teamsters Local 2040, described the return to work offer as "a legal strategy, not surrender. If it can accomplish what it's suppose to, it will be great." He said he didn't want to leave any union member out if he went back to work.

Many strikers made clear that they wanted to continue the fight. Glen Libby, a striking printer and member of CWA Local 18, said that at his regular weekly union meeting, just hours before the public announcement, "the local president wanted a secret ballot advisory vote about going back. In a voice vote, we overwhelming rejected his signing the back-to-work offer."

The companies were quick to respond. "Our position is that the strike is over," Tim Kelleher, senior vice president for labor relations at the DNA told the press. He repeated management's position that replacement workers are permanent and that strikers should apply to be on a preferential list. An article in the News claimed, "All three companies will be 'open shops,' meaning union membership will not be compulsory." The companies have five days to officially respond to the unions' offer.

The strike hurt the newspapers, owned by two publishing giants, Gannett and Knight Ridder. But the strikers were never able to stop the papers from printing. Early in the strike the DNA published a joint edition of the two newspapers, but eventually resumed publishing both.

The companies admit to losing $120 million and about 30 percent of their readerships, but claim the strike allowed them to streamline the operations. They say they need 700 fewer workers to produce the papers through cutting the size of printing and shipping crews and reorganizing distribution. The unions report the strike has cost the papers $250 million and 700,000 readers. Wall Street sharks supported the union busting campaign in Detroit. Gannett saw its stock price rise almost 50 percent during the strike, and Knight-Ridder's stock price climbed almost 40 percent.  
 
 
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