Pittsburgh stories through photos
The crowd, cheering and shaking tambourines outside the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette headquarters, quieted as Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh President Andrew Goldstein waved his key card over the door sensor. A faint beep, Goldstein pulled open the doors and gave a modest wave as fellow guild members filed behind him into the lobby and the Pittsburgh Labor Choir hammered out Woodie Guthrie’s “Union Maid” above the hoots and hollers of supporters gathered outside.
“It’s been a while since I had the Sunday scaries heading back into work,” said Natalie Duleba, Newspaper Guild secretary and returning to the paper as a newsletter writer. “I’m so ready to go back to work, this is what we’ve been fighting for, this is what we want … I’m hoping that the managers and company people inside welcome us back and it’s a smooth transition. But we’re ready for anything.”
About 25 guild members, including Goldstein and Duleba, returned to their jobs today for the first time in more than three years, after a court ruling last week upheld a prior National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) judgment in their favor. The returning journalists were still awaiting response from the Post-Gazette about their intent to return to work as they rode the elevator up to the North Shore newsroom. Once inside, they had questions for management about getting gear and emails set up, and asking that the people hired by the newspaper during the strike be retained.
“We’re not here for revenge. We’re not here to destroy the Post-Gazette. We are here to rebuild it,” said Goldstein to management. “You get to decide on your role in that. We’ve already decided on ours.”
The group, including Pulitzer-winning reporters, copy editors, designers and photojournalists, voted last week to end the strike and sent the company a return to work offer.
When the union announced its strike in October 2022, it noted that its members had been working without a contract for more than three years when management declared an impasse and imposed wage cuts, less comprehensive health insurance, reductions in vacation time from veteran workers and reduced job protections.
The return to the newsroom came two weeks after three judges on the federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals issued a 14-page order affirming a NLRB decision finding that:
- PG Publishing, which owns the newspaper, bargained in bad faith by demanding that the union allow subcontracting, change work hours and scale back health benefits.
- The company prematurely declared an impasse and sought to impose its contract offer.
- The company unlawfully surveilled strike rallies.
- The NLRB has the authority to order the paper to compensate strikers for economic harms.
The guild said in a statement that the order effectively met “our demands when we went out on strike 37 months ago. We have secured them. And in line with the court’s order, we formally requested those [contract] terms be restored.”
The guild added that if the company did not bring strikers back by Nov. 29, it would start owing wages and benefits costs based on the contract that was in place into 2017.
PG Publishing followed the decision with a motion to put the decision on hold and asking that the entire Third Circuit review the decision. In a statement after the ruling, the company said the judge’s terms could spell the end of their newspaper, and vowed to “pursue every legal and business avenue available to protect our employees and defend the vital interests of Pittsburgh and a free press.”
Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh members, with President Andrew Goldstein in the center of first photo, arrive to return to work at the Post-Gazette, Nov. 24, on the North Shore. Once inside, guild members signed in at a security desk and joined management for a discussion about getting back to work and to see which roles they would return to in the newsroom. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)
In addition to the Post-Gazette, parent group Block Communications owns several broadcasting firms and other media outlets including local alt-weekly Pittsburgh City Paper.
Union membership is down nationally from 20% in 1983 to just under 10% last year, but organizing locally has been vigorous.
- Hospital workers have organized at UPMC and AHN facilities, largely with the Service Employees International Union.
- Eos Energy employees joined the United Steelworkers.
- Also part of the USW are University of Pittsburgh graduate students.
- Starbucks baristas have sought to organize with Workers United.
“We walked in the footsteps of the people of Pittsburgh and all across this country who have sacrificed and fought and died for their rights in the workplace. The times and the characters may change, but that story never ends. It’s only picked up by the next writer,” said Goldstein in a speech from the sidewalk along North Shore Drive, imploring striking Starbucks workers in the crowd and union members across the country to “take our pen and hold power to account.”
Correction: Workers United is organizing Starbucks employees. An editor’s error in an earlier version of this story misidentified the union.
Stephanie Strasburg is a photojournalist with Pittsburgh’s Public Source who can be reached at stephanie@publicsource.org, on Instagram @stephaniestrasburg or on Twitter @stephstrasburg. She was a member of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette staff and the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh from 2017 through 2022.
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