Service & Solidarity Spotlight: Post-Gazette Journalists to Be Awarded Millions After Union-Busters Lose Supreme Court Case

Working people across the United States regularly step up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our Service & Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s appeal of a ruling requiring the company to pay Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, The NewsGuild-CWA (TNG-CWA) Local 38061, members after management made illegal unilateral changes to their working conditions.

The newspaper—which was owned by Block Communications until earlier this year—cut workers’ pay and implemented increases in health care costs. Now, with no further venue for appeal, the Post-Gazette owes millions of dollars to its current and former employees.

“I’ve actually lost count of the number of agencies, judges, courts, and other authorities that have told the Blocks that the workers were right and the multi-millionaires were wrong. Our members were the first to tell them—more than nine years ago now,” said Jon Schleuss, president of The NewsGuild-CWA. “It’s staggering to think how much money and time the company wasted on losing when that could have been spent on dignified working conditions and improving the caliber of local journalism.”

“A lot of honest, determined people sacrificed more than most know to get this ruling enforced and finalized,” said Andrew Goldstein, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and president of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh. “The Blocks and their co-conspirators in company management and elsewhere knowingly and willfully broke federal law for years, bringing untold harm to not only their workers but the news industry more broadly. We’re looking forward to getting quite literal payback and hope this serves as a warning to similarly reckless owners. Shame on the Blocks.”