The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh is pleased to report that we have prevailed in our arbitration regarding the Post-Gazette’s failure to pay for health-care premium increases for the past two years (and planned to do so again in 2020).

As you know, we won the same issue at the NLRB until it was thrown out by three Trump appointees to the board in Washington. We had feared that would happen which is why we chose a two-pronged approach, a federal unfair labor practice AND a contract grievance that we took to arbitration. As it turns out,  this strategy was sound, necessary and successful.

Below please find the email that the arbitrator sent to Joe Pass’ son, Joseph S. Pass, who so brilliantly argued our case with his father as one of our witnesses, and PG attorney Richard Lowe. 

“The arbitrator’s ruling shows in no uncertain terms that our position was right all along,” said Michael A. Fuoco, PG reporter and Guild president. “If the company wasn’t paying millions for bad legal advice from a union-busting attorney — as evidenced by this ruling and a recent federal court ruling regarding the Teamsters — we would have had fair and equitable contracts long ago.

“Our hope is the Blocks finally wake up and see there will be no union busting and it’s time to cut their losses, get rid of Lowe and negotiate in good faith. The future of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is at stake and we want to save it.”

Full ruling of arbitrator Jay Nadelbach

By agreement of the parties, I am providing the below Award in the above matter (as promised, by the end of this calendar year), with a full Award and Opinion to follow by mid-January, on or before January 21, 2020.

AWARD

1) The grievance is arbitrable. The threshold arguments of the Employer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, regarding timeliness and the doctrine of laches are rejected.

2) The grievance is upheld. The Employer violated the parties’ collective bargaining agreement by failing to maintain the agreed-upon health care benefits established in Article XX and as set forth in Exhibit B of the agreement.

3) The Employer is directed to pay the amount necessary to maintain the specific health insurance benefit levels set forth therein (ie., all increases that may be required to keep the contractual level of benefits), subject to and until a new collective bargaining agreement is negotiated and reached between the parties.

4) Employees shall be made whole for any out-of-pocket monies paid as a result of the Employer’s failure to maintain the contractual level of benefits.

5) This Award is final and binding. I shall retain jurisdiction, however, for the limited purpose of resolving any disputes that may arise in the implementation of the remedy granted in paragraph #4 herein.

Dated: December 30, 2019
New York, New York
Jay Nadelbach