PITTSBURGH (TNS) — Dozens of journalists, photographers and editors have crossed the picket line to continue working at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Newsroom workers, represented by the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, launched a strike at noon Tuesday in protest of what they consider unfair labor practices by the company.
This comes after Post-Gazette employees belonging to unions representing production, distribution and advertising workers went on strike earlier this month.
Already, about 30 people have crossed the picket line, according to union officials and a group of workers who are not striking.
”It was a very narrow vote” to go on strike, said Alex McCann, secretary of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh.
McCann said the vote for newsroom workers to strike was tallied at 38 to 36. The Guild had said Tuesday that the union represented 101 newsroom employees, though dozens of employees have resigned from the Guild and stayed on the job. An exact number was not immediately available Wednesday.
A group that said it represented a large portion of the Post-Gazette employees still working said the Guild “commenced a strike with fewer than 40% of its members voting in favor of the move.”
”This vote was taken under the pressure of the Communications Workers of America, which threatened to unilaterally impose a strike on the local and remove its leadership if the vote did not conform to its wishes,” the group said in a statement.
The Communications Workers of America is the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh’s parent union.
As for workers leaving the union and not participating in the strike, McCann said he was confident that “as time goes by, they will join in our fight.”
Even with the numbers it has now, McCann said, union leaders are confident that they have enough support for contract negotiations. McCann said the union has also seen strong support from other labor leaders and guilds throughout the country.
”We are very optimistic that the community will continue to step up for us,” McCann said.
The CWA is providing strike benefits of $300 a week for workers on the picket line, McCann said. That could ultimately increase to $400 a week, he said.
McCann said union leaders are in the process of setting up a system where people could donate to support striking workers. They also are planning to launch a strike publication, which he said would feature stories about the striking workers and possibly expand to include general journalism as well.
The group of workers still on the job said in its statement that it hopes the local Guild prevails, but they won’t be joining in on the picket line. The group said many of its workers had supported members of other striking unions by withholding their bylines during a byline strike.
The group argued that the CWA “has imposed a strike against the local’s wishes,” and suggested that some people who voted in favor of the strike only did so “to retain local leadership in the face of CWA threats.”
