BY JAY RESSLER
DETROIT - More than 100 union activists and officials
turned out at the Teamsters headquarters here September 1 to
announce a decision by the National Labor Relations Board
(NLRB) ordering the reinstatement of locked-out workers at the
Detroit News, Free Press, and Detroit Newspaper Agency.
At times the press conference turned into a rally.
Earlier in the day several dozen locked-out workers held an impromptu picket line outside the News-Free Press building. Pickets shouted, "Bye-bye scabs!" and carried signs reading "Guilty."
The August 27 NLRB ruling "has dealt a serious blow to the long-running campaign by America's two largest newspaper chains to eliminate union influence," wrote Alan Forsyth in the Detroit Sunday Journal, which is published by striking newspaper workers.
The government board unanimously ruled that the dispute, which began in July 1995, was an "unfair labor practices" strike and that the newspapers had not bargained in good faith. It ordered the papers to "cease and desist" from bargaining in bad faith and rehire hundreds of reporters, drivers, pressmen, and other workers in addition to paying them millions of dollars in back wages and benefits. It also ordered the newspapers to terminate scabs if necessary to bring back strikers.
In a prepared statement union leaders called on the newspapers to "do what the law requires.... To comply with the NLRB board order and get this 39-month struggle over - Now."
The government labor board ordered the newspapers to comply within 21 days, but this will most likely be delayed for many months while the bosses appeal.
In February 1997, 19 months after the walkout began, strikers agreed to an unconditional offer to return to work, but were taken back only as jobs came open. Union leaders estimate 1,100 or 1,200 workers are still awaiting reinstatement.
Representative John Conyers appeared at the press conference and offered his congratulations.
At one point during the press conference a reporter asked union officials when they expected workers to be returned to work. From the back of the room a worker yelled, "They broke the law, that's the bottom line!" Strikers began chanting "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!"
The most recent ruling upheld most of two previous decisions by NLRB administrative law judges. Thomas Wilks ruled in June 1997 the papers caused and prolonged the strike through 10 unfair labor practices.
Last November William Kocol ruled the papers were guilty of labor law violations for not reinstating strikers after the unions made unconditional offers to return to work.
For many strike supporters, a key victory for workers was the board's reaffirmation of Wilks's ruling against the News for imposing a merit pay-based system, the issue that provoked the strike.
In a related development, on August 10, for the first time since October 1996, bargaining between the newspapers and the unions resumed under the auspices of a federal mediator.
Locked-out strikers had a prominent booth and a big presence at the Detroit Labor Day parade. They distributed big bundles of the Sunday Journal to participants.
Groups of strikers regularly participate in strike support activities throughout the Midwest. Signs supporting the newspaper workers are prominent at many picket lines in the region.
Many are planning to participate in solidarity activities for striking Steelworkers at MSI in Marietta, Ohio, shortly after Labor Day.
Jay Ressler is a member of the United Steelworkers of America.