The newsroom workers of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, represented by the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, voted on Monday to authorize an unfair labor practice strike against the company.

On Monday, the Guild sent a notice to Post-Gazette management to demand that the company end its illegally declared impasse to contract negotiations, lift the unilaterally imposed working conditions and reinstate the terms of the previous collectively bargained contract, and return to the contract bargaining table to reach a fair contract with the 101 journalists the Guild represents.

If the Post-Gazette fails to meet those demands, Guild journalists will commence a strike at noon Tuesday.

“The workers who produce the Post-Gazette are taking a stand against the hostile and illegal treatment at the hands of John and Allan Block,” said Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh President Zack Tanner. “We, the workers, are standing together today, ready to fight to win back our contract and work toward signing a new collective bargaining agreement that preserves the Post-Gazette for the Pittsburgh region.”

The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh has been in negotiations for a contract with PG management since 2017. The PG’s union-busting attorneys bargained in bad faith for 3½ years. On July 27, 2020, the PG unlawfully declared an impasse to negotiations, despite the Guild’s bargaining committee noting that negotiations were not even close to an impasse and that the Guild was willing to continue discussions to reach an agreement.

But despite that, the PG illegally and unilaterally imposed new working conditions on the journalists of the Newspaper Guild, cutting their wages, taking vacation time away from veteran workers, farming out their work to non-Guild workers and forcing them onto a health insurance plan that offers less coverage at a higher price.

The Newspaper Guild subsequently filed unfair labor practice charges against the Post-Gazette over these violations of their workers’ rights. Over five days in September and October, these unfair labor practice charges were argued by the National Labor Relations board in front of an administrative law judge. The PG newsroom workers are taking this action while anticipating a major victory coming out of this hearing.

The owners of the Post-Gazette, Block Communications Inc., led by twin brothers John and Allan Block, have spent millions of dollars to try to bust their workers’ unions rather than attempting to reach a fair contract with the writers, editors, photographers, artists, designers and other journalists whose hard work has provided the Pittsburgh community with award-winning journalism since the late 1700s.

If the Guild workers’ demands to restore their contract are not met, then journalists will strike, joining a picket line alongside their co-workers from the production, distribution and advertising unions, who are already out on their own unfair labor practice strike against the PG. The Blocks, as they did during negotiations with the Newspaper Guild, chose to bargain in bad faith with the production, distribution and advertising unions, and they chose to strip those workers of their health care plan rather than reach a deal.

“These journalists are just trying to do their jobs in service of the people of Pittsburgh,” said NewsGuild President Jon Schleuss. “It’s despicable for the Blocks to fight their own workers and disrespect their rights to have a union. They need to bargain in good faith now.”

The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh calls on readers, advertisers, business and labor leaders, politicians and other members of the community to contact the publisher of the Post-Gazette, John Block, at johnrblock@theblade.com and impress upon him the importance of ending the labor strife at his newspaper by reaching a fair contract with the Guild.

As the unions that represent the production, distribution and advertising workers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette commence a strike in response to the termination of their health care coverage and failed negotiations with the Post-Gazette and its parent company, Block Communications Inc., to reach an agreement on a new plan, the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh stands with these striking workers in their fight for fair, affordable and comprehensive health care to allow them to care for themselves and their families. 

The Post-Gazette’s failure to offer a reasonable health care plan to the diligent and experienced workers who sell its ads, make its presses run and deliver its newspapers every single week is just another reminder that the Post-Gazette and its owners, John and Allan Block, care more about pinching pennies than treating their employees fairly.

In conjunction with the production, distribution and advertising strike, the Newspaper Guild is announcing that its members will immediately begin withholding their bylines from any physical or digital publication and will undertake other actions to stand in solidarity with our colleagues. 

“The workers of the Newspaper Guild stand with the production, distribution and advertising unionized workers at the Post-Gazette as they fight for a fair and just health care plan,” said Zack Tanner, Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh president. “The Block family has shown time and time again that they would rather pay their attorneys outrageous fees than give the workers who produce the product one benefit at all.”

Guild writers, editors, photographers, artists, designers and other journalists will remove their names from their work to indicate that they support the strike — and that they will not stand idly by as their co-workers are stripped of their health care coverage by the Post-Gazette’s multimillionaire ownership. 

The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh is asking the community to stand with the production unions at the Post-Gazette currently on strike.

Newspaper Guild members are all too familiar with the miserly management of John and Allan Block, who for years have made it abundantly clear that they would rather spend millions to hire high-priced attorneys from Tennessee to try to bust their workers’ unions instead of reaching fair contracts with the employees whose hard work produces the news.

“Two years ago, we decided to embark on a legal strategy to fight the unlawful impasse and unilateral working conditions that the Post-Gazette forced upon its journalists,” said Tanner. “While our National Labor Relations Board hearing is still ongoing, this union will be standing strong behind our union colleagues as they enact a major job action against the Post-Gazette.”

The Newspaper Guild’s last contract with the company expired in March 2017, and unproductive contract bargaining continued until July 27, 2020, when the Post-Gazette illegally declared an impasse to bargaining and unilaterally imposed working conditions that lowered wages, reduced benefits and stripped away years of bargained protections for the 100-plus newsroom journalists represented by the Newspaper Guild. 

The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh calls on the community to contact the publisher of the Post-Gazette, John Robinson Block, at johnrblock@theblade.com and request that he end the labor strife at the newspaper. 

The National Labor Relations Board’s Pittsburgh office has issued a long-awaited complaint against the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and its parent company, Block Communications, Inc., for bad-faith bargaining and other improper conduct in its contract talks with the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh.

The complaint, dated Wednesday, April 27, 2022, and filed by NLRB Regional Director Nancy Wilson, said the company “bargained with no intention of reaching agreement” by “insisting upon proposals that are predictably unacceptable to the union.” It orders the company to attend a hearing before an administrative law judge Sept. 12, 2022 to respond to the charges.

This once again proves what Newspaper Guild leadership has been saying for years, that the company has acted in bad faith against the workers that create its award winning product, and that they would rather spend millions of dollars on an out-of-state attorney rather than the journalists who report the news.

The Guild’s last contract with the company expired in March 2017 and unproductive contract bargaining continued until July 27, 2020, when the company declared an impasse to bargaining and unilaterally imposed working conditions that lowered wages, reduced benefits, and stripped away years of bargained protections for over 100 newsroom journalists represented by the Newspaper Guild. Since then, the Post-Gazette has assigned work normally done by union members to managers and freelance writers, has denied earned vacation time to the most senior members, and has hired new employees at positions and wages not agreed to in previous bargaining sessions with the Guild. These actions have led the Guild to file a series of grievances and unfair labor practice charges. 

The company and Guild have negotiated a series of concessionary contracts in recent years and union members haven’t had an across-the-board raise since 2006.

“This complaint supports what we have been saying all along — the company has had no interest in reaching a new contract and has been out to break the union,” said Ed Blazina, the union’s acting president. “Now, it is time for the company to be held responsible for its illegal actions.”

In addition to bad-faith bargaining, the complaint says the company acted illegally by taking photographs and video of union members when they held rallies or demonstrations to express concern about the lack of progress in contract bargaining.

The complaint about bad-faith bargaining comes on the heels of a ruling late last year by a U.S. Circuit Court that the Post-Gazette and BCI illegally changed health care benefits during contract negotiations. As a result, the company had to pay members more than $100,000 plus interest to reimburse them for health-care costs that would have been covered under the previous insurance.

“Our great hope is that the company can see that the writing is on the wall and they should drop their outrageous attempts to break this union,” Blazina said. “Through all of this turmoil, our members have continued to do award-winning work, even winning a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Tree of Life shootings in Squirrel Hill. It’s time for this company to do the right thing and settle this labor dispute.”

The NLRB complaint can be found here.

Contact: Ed Blazina, 412-773-2242, pghguild@gmail.com

Union journalists at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, represented by the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, on Thursday will mark five years since the expiration of their last collectively bargained contract, which was signed on October 14, 2014, and expired on March 31, 2017.

In order to commemorate the day, NewsGuild members will hold an “Unhappy Anniversary” action at 12 p.m. on North Shore Drive in front of the Post-Gazette newsroom. Members will then deliver an anniversary card to the newsroom that, among other things, lists the many accomplishments that PG journalists have achieved over the past five years, including a Pulitzer Prize and dozens of other national, state, and local awards.   

In the five years since the contract expired, PG parent company Block Communications Inc. has spent millions of dollars fighting their own workers at the bargaining table and illegally and unilaterally slashing benefits. Those benefit cuts included increasing the cost of and reducing the coverage in health care, cutting vacation time for the most senior workers, and reducing jurisdiction and job security language. To top it all off, the journalists at the PG have not had a collective raise since 2006.

This reprehensible behavior culminated on July 27, 2020, when the PG illegally declared an impasse at bargaining and unilaterally imposed work rules onto journalists at the paper.

“It is hard to believe Block Communications has been so willing to spend millions on out-of-town, union-busting attorneys rather than its own loyal employees,” said Ed Blazina, the union’s interim president. “In that same five years, our members have continued to do exemplary work, including winning a Pulitzer Prize, and providing award-winning coverage during the pandemic. It’s sad that we are five years from the expiration of our last contract and the Post-Gazette has yet to show interest in negotiating a fair contract.”

NewsGuild members have pushed back, staging public actions and rallies and filing multiple unfair labor practices with the National Labor Relations Board in an effort to get the PG to bargain in good faith to secure the future for workers and a strong newspaper for the Pittsburgh community.

“We hope that by highlighting the award-winning work of the journalists at the PG in the absurd amount of time that we’ve worked without a contract, we’re able to collectively show ownership that the workers of their paper deserve their fair share,” said Zack Tanner, Post-Gazette unit chair.

The Post-Gazette is a community asset that the Newspaper Guild wants to preserve, but reaching a fair agreement that benefits the award-winning journalists is paramount to maintaining quality journalism in Pittsburgh.