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The strike at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is now the longest in the nation. And it's not over. • Pennsylvania Capital-Star [1]
['Ian Karbal', 'Jen Byers', 'Kim Lyons', 'Tom Sofield', 'More From Author', '- Monday December', '- December', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus']
Date: 2024-12-02 11:00:07+00:00
The Post-Gazette offices on North Shore Drive in Pittsburgh (Capital-Star photo by Ian Karbal)
It had just finished raining and the Sulphur Run creek bank In East Palestine, Ohio was slippery. Steve Mellon, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, carefully followed Christina Siceloff into the shallow water below.
More than 18 months had passed since a train carrying thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals derailed nearby in February 2023. The creek developed a metallic sheen and gave off a chemical scent. In September, 2024, Siceloff, a resident who lived a few miles away over the Pennsylvania border, was continuing to document the accident’s impacts, accompanied by Mellon.
Mellon was one of the few journalists from any major outlet still on the ground in East Palestine. But none of his reporting on it has been published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – the paper where he made his name and remains technically employed. Instead, it appeared in the smaller, online-only Pittsburgh Union Progress that he helped start with his co-workers.
The Union Progress was created as a strike publication after Pittsburgh Post-Gazette journalists walked off the job in an unfair labor practice strike in October 2022. It’s now the longest ongoing strike in the country, according to the International Communications Workers of America.
Journalists and newsroom staff, represented by the Pittsburgh Newspaper Guild, have gone without a union contract for seven years. During this time, the paper imposed terms that raised health care costs and cut other benefits.
An administrative law judge has ruled that the Post-Gazette failed to bargain in good faith, and the National Labor Relations Board took the rare step of issuing an injunction request to resume bargaining that could effectively end the strike. The Post-Gazette’s owners have appealed that move.
But despite the dispute, enough employees kept working to keep the paper publishing. The strike has created — and in some ways deepened — bitter divisions among the Post-Gazette’s journalists, many of whom have worked alongside each other for years. It also laid bare years of turmoil within the union itself, that included the ouster of its longtime leader over sexual misconduct allegations.
So trust in the union leadership was already low when the strike vote occurred, and a successful resolution was far from certain. Now, with a new administration in the White House come January, the strike’s future has become even more uncertain.
‘There’s two sides to a picket line’
Three weeks after meeting Siceloff, Mellon arrived at the Post-Gazette’s office on Pittsburgh’s North Shore. He was still thinking about East Palestine — how to make time to keep reporting, despite his obligations to the strike and Union Progress. Around 50 other strikers and supporters were gathered to mark the strike’s two-year anniversary. Inside the building, there were few, if any, working employees present.
When the walkout began, enough employees remained on the job to keep the paper afloat. Over time, a handful of workers left the picket line, and dozens of new staff members were hired by the paper, ultimately diminishing the strikers’ leverage.
Zack Tanner, the Newspaper Guild’s president, stood away from the crowd, wearing a Penguins jersey and smoking a cigar. His dog, a 103 lb. Akita named Bella, had been a little too excited by another, smaller dog in the crowd. “This has been elongated to this point solely because of the people inside,” he said. “In a labor battle, there’s strikers and there’s scabs. There’s two sides to a picket line.”
As the strike has gone on, tensions between both sides have grown, and it’s unclear how or when the strike will end. On Nov. 13, the first negotiations between the Post-Gazette’s lawyers and the union in over a year ended after Tanner threw a chair at the wall of a conference room in the Omni William Penn Hotel.
“There’s nobody who’s winning from this right now,” said Andrew Conte, director of the Center for Media Innovation at Point Park University. “It’s just heartbreaking. The Post-Gazette is losing out, the strikers are losing out, the public is losing out and then I think the media ecosystem is losing out.”
Newspaper employees who crossed the picket line declined to speak to the Capital-Star on the record for fear of the impact on their future careers and retaliation by the union or the paper’s owners.
Allan Block, who co-owns the newspaper with his brother, John Robinson Block, told the Capital-Star in a terse phone call, “we have not been unfair bargaining” and “you’re allowed to replace strikers.”
Allison Latcheran, senior director of marketing and a spokesperson at the paper, did not answer specific questions but said in a statement, “the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has been named News Organization of the Year by the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association for three consecutive years. We are very proud of the commitment to sustained excellence demonstrated by our employees every day.”
How it began
Since 2017, Post-Gazette journalists have worked without a union contract. The paper’s owners appeared to show little interest in negotiating a new one, but in 2020, they imposed new terms on employees. Workers learned during the pandemic that the cost of their healthcare plan would increase for many and some would lose banked sick days, among other unfavorable changes.
Some newsroom staff were also fed up with the Blocks, who had drawn increased scrutiny to the paper through a series of widely criticized editorial and personnel decisions. In one 2019 episode that’s become something of a newsroom legend, John Block brought his young daughter into the office and berated employees. Reportedly, he stood in front of a union poster that said “shame on the Blocks,” and demanded an employee photograph him and his daughter, who was crying, in front of it.
The Blocks were also accused of interfering in editorial decisions. In 2018, the New York Times reported a cartoonist was apparently fired over his work that was critical of then-President Donald Trump. Two years later, the guild alleged a Black reporter was barred from covering racial justice protests after writing a satirical tweet.
The owners were also known to assign reporters stories based on personal grievances. Andrew Goldstein, now the Post-Gazette unit chair in the Pittsburgh Newspaper Guild, recalled how he was asked to report on why garbage wasn’t picked up near John Block’s home in 2017.
“For obvious reasons I chose not to put my byline on it,” Goldstein said.
So in August 2020, more than 70% of Pittsburgh Newspaper Guild members voted to approve a strike, but it would never materialize. Weeks later, Guild President Mike Fuoco resigned after he was accused of sexual misconduct spanning years. Higher-ups at both the paper and union had been alerted but failed to act, per accounts given to The New York Times.
The newsroom guild’s parent union, the Communications Workers of America, declined to support the strike. For many in the newsroom, the timing made it look like damage control. But Jon Schleuss, president of the Newsguild-Communications Workers of America, says it had decided not to support the work stoppage even before the news about Fuoco went national.
“It damaged the credibility of the union,” Mellon said. “And a lot of us were wrestling with these personal issues. Feelings that we had let our friends down by not picking up on these things, and anger.”
During the aftermath, the union elected its first Black woman leader, Lacretia Wimbley. The vote was close, 55-52, but a recount was called over alleged procedural issues involving mail ballots. It wasn’t until February, after the union held a second election, that the guild formally announced Wimbley’s victory.
Wimbley left the paper the next year. She did not respond to a request for an interview.
To many involved, the response to growing concerns felt slow.
“The rebuilding of trust in the group, rebuilding a steward network, an organizing network and everything probably didn’t start until summer 2021,” said Tanner, who became a unit chair in the union around that time. “If you weren’t in the middle of the COVID shutdown, things may have healed quicker just because you’d have been in the same room as people.”
The NewsGuild-CWA hired outside consultants to study the state of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh and make suggestions on how to move forward. They published a report in the fall of 2021 based on dozens of interviews. It noted many referred to the newsroom as a “dysfunctional family.”
“All of these different factors really kind of played in the company’s favor while they were taking away our rights and stealing our pay,” Goldstein said about chaos in the union.
Karen Carlin, a copy editor who’s worked at the Post-Gazette for 30 years, understands why there was still anger when the vote was held to authorize the current strike two years after Fuoco was ousted.
“I’m as upset as anybody else,” Carlin said. “But I can’t look at the past. I need to look into the future.” She voted to strike.
The strike begins
Employees began returning to the newsroom in spring, 2022— though attendance never returned to pre-pandemic levels.
Two rounds of buyouts meant a number of longtime workers and union members were gone. The smaller workforce was younger. Many of the new hires were early-career journalists who had little experience with the Newspaper Guild, or any union. And they had voluntarily taken jobs under the terms imposed on other employees.
A long-simmering standoff between the paper’s ownership and the production unions representing the delivery, press and advertising workers was also coming to a head.
For years, the Post-Gazette had refused to cover annual premium increases for the production workers’ healthcare plan, according to Joe Pass, the lawyer for the three production unions and the newsroom guild. When the company imposed a $19 per-week increase to employees in 2022, while pushing them into a high-deductible plan, Pass said that was a “breaking point.”
When neither side paid, the health care plan lapsed in October 2022, Pass said, which took leaders of the newsroom union by surprise.
Schleuss attributed the communication breakdown to what he called anti-union practices intended to “divide people up.” To handle bargaining, the newspaper hired the law firm King and Bellew and put an end to joint bargaining between the five unions years earlier.
Attorney Richard Lowe of King and Bellew, who represents the Post-Gazette in bargaining sessions, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
On Oct. 6, 2022, the production unions began their own strike over the health care lapse.
According to Tanner, that’s when broad discussions about a newsroom work stoppage began. But some journalists have said the first they heard about it was only days before an all-hands Zoom meeting on Oct. 17, the day before the walk-out. At that time, there were no set plans for how striking employees would receive health care or strike pay.
Participants were also told that if a majority didn’t vote in favor, the International Communications Workers of America would effectively replace the local leadership and lead the strike anyway.
Carlin said she understands why some felt “strong-armed.” But she added, “I always knew that I would vote yes.”
The ultimate tally was 38-36 in favor of the strike, though not all members of the newsroom voted. Around 15% had stopped paying union dues altogether after the Post Gazette’s imposed terms meant they stopped being deducted from paychecks in 2020, according to Tanner.
Paul Clark, a labor studies professor at Penn State University, told the Capital-Star, “for unions to be effective in a strike situation like this, it’s really important that their members be on the same page, that there be unity.”
He added that both the speed of the vote and the parent union’s ultimatum were unusual. “It clearly wasn’t the kind of situation you want to be in if you’re trying to get your union members to come together,” Clark said. He compared this to recent successful strikes, like the United Auto Workers’ or the Writers Guild of America’s, both in 2023.
The day after the vote, less than 60% of the newsroom walked out, according to Tanner. Though over a short time, the number of strikers grew, with 60 on the picket line and 35 remaining at work. But the paper was able to continue publishing online. It was a particular blow to strikers’ hopes when some reporters on the sports desk, including those covering the Steelers, refused to join. They regularly produced some of the paper’s most-read and arguably most profitable work.
Despite initial concerns, strikers were able to cobble together a health care plan quickly. The local and parent unions raised money for $400-per-week strike pay and to build a separate fund to help strikers with personal expenses on an as-needed basis, leaders said.
“If anybody needs anything, we figure out a way to make that happen,” said Bob Batz, a features editor who had been at the Post-Gazette for almost 30 years.
Strikers also found a way to meet another need. The Pittsburgh Union Progress, affectionately referred to by strikers as “the PUP,” was formed so those on strike could continue reporting and publishing online. Batz serves as its editor.
“The PUP has meant a great deal to me,” Carlin said. “I feel like I’m still contributing to serving my community in getting them information. And I’m keeping my skills sharp, and that’s very important to me.”
They also used it to draw attention to their strike as well, even covering negotiating sessions with the paper.
“We always knew that was one of our channels, to cover our own strike,” Batz said. “Frankly, it’s been kind of a lingering disappointment to me personally how little coverage we’ve gotten from other media, especially right in Pittsburgh.”
‘Behead bosses, management and scabs alike’
In the early weeks of the strike, many striking union members kept in touch with those who stayed at the paper. They tried to convince them to join the picket line, touting successes in lining up health care and strike pay. But there was little movement. A few employees crossed the picket line in either direction, but Carlin said it didn’t take long for people to stop returning her calls. Over time, feelings on both sides calcified.
Strike leaders say that documents shared with them by the paper — a standard practice — show that the company has given new hires and workers who remained at the paper unprecedented bonuses and ahead-of-schedule raises since the strike began. Their documents show that, in total, over $269,000 has been awarded this way since Oct., 2022.
The Post-Gazette did not comment.
Tanner has not been subtle in showing his disdain for those who cross picket lines. In January, he posted on the Meta-owned Threads platform that “the National Labor Relations Board should have the authority to behead bosses, management and scabs alike.”
When asked about the post, Tanner laughed. But speaking to the broader use of sometimes aggressive public pressure tactics, he said “continuing to work and making it possible for the Post-Gazette to put a paper out, I’d say that’s a pretty personal attack.”
Tensions spilled out on the newsroom side as well. Stan Wischnowski, the paper’s executive editor, filed criminal trespassing charges against a striking editor, Ed Blazina, after he placed a pro-union yard sign on Wischnowski’s front lawn. The charges were dismissed.
On Nov. 13, the first negotiations between the Post-Gazette’s lawyers and the newsroom union in over a year ended after Tanner threw a chair at the wall of a conference room in the Omni William Penn Hotel.
Court documents say Tanner is being charged with misdemeanor criminal mischief. The incident was covered by Post-Gazette journalist Kris Mamula, who has been reporting on negotiations for the paper. It wasn’t mentioned in Batz’s story for the Union-Progress about the same bargaining session.
“Despite the frustration of the Post-Gazette’s failure to negotiate in good faith, our union remains committed to a peaceful and constructive process,” said Moira Buloch, a senior campaign coordinator with the International Communications Workers of America. “Any isolated expressions of frustration should not detract from the overall commitment of our union to reach a fair contract on behalf of the dedicated striking journalists.”
Tanner did not respond to questions about the incident.
“Personally, I am upset by the conduct that happened,” said Natalie Duleba, a member of the Newspaper Guild bargaining committee. Though she said Tanner’s outburst was unacceptable, she added that the often hours-long bargaining sessions, repeatedly resulting in no progress, can feel “designed to melt our brains.”
“It’s clearly a tactic to wear down the union, to get us to fold just because we’re so exhausted,” Duleba said.
‘Which side are you going to stand with?’
Largely, the union’s hope of ending the strike relies on a legal process rather than the work stoppage itself.
In August, after an administrative law judge ruled that the Post-Gazette was not bargaining in good faith, the National Labor Relations Board filed an injunction request that would force the Post-Gazette to reinstate the terms of the union contract that expired in 2017 and return to negotiations. Union leaders have said that could effectively end the strike. But the company has appealed, and it’s unclear how long the legal process will drag on.
The outcome could depend on future political shifts, given President-elect Donald Trump’s stance on labor rights. He’ll have the power to appoint a new general counsel for the board, who is ultimately responsible for the direction of active cases.
“The general counsel could go into the court and say we’re gonna withdraw this case,” said Ann Hodges, professor of law emerita at the University of Richmond. “Whether that will happen, we don’t know. Whether Trump will fire the general counsel and appoint another one, we don’t know.”
Trump has sent mixed signals. He’s gone from praising billionaire Elon Musk for firing striking workers to backing a labor secretary who’s supported pro-union legislation.
Regardless of how it ends, those who walked out question how they could return to the company and work alongside people who crossed their picket line.
“Everybody gets to that question, and we don’t know the answer,” Batz said. “I think it’ll take some grace on both sides. We’ll have to do that, but we certainly can’t be the only people who do that. We’re not in a really good mood after two years of being on strike and having no pay and having no benefits.”
Carlin believes that rebuilding will require “education.”
“There’s a lot of work to be done with new hires, who we had no connection with, to educate them as to why we’re unionized and what the union could do for them,” Carlin said. “I think I’ve tried not to think about that too much because I don’t want to get too anxiety-ridden about it when it’s not happening tomorrow.”
For Mellon, it’s possible that his work will offer answers.
His reporting on East Palestine fits into a broader trend throughout his career. He has a passion for documenting what happens to communities after a tragedy, historic event, or defining experience transforms them.
“There’s an initial coming together, a sense of unity,” Mellon said about these stories. “But then there are cracks and fissures with time. … I find that fascinating, and something we need to come to grips with, because it keeps happening.”
He related to Siceloff, who said her work exposing the harms caused to East Palestine led some in her community to lash out at her and question her motives. Standing by his 2010 Prius beside the Sulphur Run Creek, Mellon mulled over the parallels of their situations.
In a later interview, Mellon remembered how difficult it was the day after the strike vote. He recalled parking his car a mile from the office to give himself time to walk, think, and maybe even come up with an excuse to turn around and not join the picket line.
As a journalist in Pittsburgh since 1989, and at the Post-Gazette since 1997, he knew better than most the ways the paper, the broader industry and the stability of a career in journalism had changed. He thought about Fuoco and the turmoil in the union as well. And he could see the ways those changes and that history impacted the burgeoning strike. Still, he believed that the best outcome for future reporters could only be achieved through a strong union.
“It’s a democratic process, and It’s ugly and it’s very uncomfortable at times, but I don’t know of an alternative,” he said. “A strike is a binary choice. Which side are you going to stand with?”
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Update: This story was updated Dec. 2, 2024 at 1:03 p.m. to clarify details around the call to strike in 2020.
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