-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the July 20, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
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COURT DEALS BLOW TO LOCKED-OUT DETROIT NEWSPAPER STRIKERS
By Kris Hamel
Detroit
A three-judge panel of the District of Columbia Court of
Appeals in Washington has dealt a major setback to the
locked-out Detroit newspaper workers. The judges ruled that
the Detroit newspaper workers' strike was not an unfair
labor practices strike.
The impact of this ruling, if it holds up on appeal, is
that the locked-out newspaper workers lose their right to
reclaim the jobs taken over by scabs, and lose their claim
for back pay for the three years they've been out of work.
The D.C. Court of Appeals overturned a 5-0 vote by the
National Labor Relations Board that the Detroit newspaper
workers strike was an unfair labor practices strike. The
NLRB had held that the Detroit News' imposition of merit
pay on members of the Newspaper Guild constituted an unfair
labor practice, and essentially the other unions were on a
protected sympathy strike with the Guild members.
Yet in an earlier case involving the Sacramento Bee the
D.C. Court of Appeals held that the imposition of merit pay
was an unfair labor practice. But when faced with the same
issue involving the Detroit News and Free Press papers--
jointly owned by Gannett and Knight Ridder, the largest
newspaper monopolies in the country--the court buckled
under corporate pressure.
The Detroit newspapers' coverage of this defeat for the
workers was somewhat muted. The newspaper bosses had to
acknowledge in print that the workers struggle has cost
them huge losses in revenue and circulation, as well as
"good will." A union-sponsored boycott of the newspapers
continues and has cost the two Detroit dailies hundreds of
thousands of readers.
The newspaper workers have vowed to continue the battle to
win a contract and to return all the locked-out workers to
their jobs. That fight will be pressed in the streets and
through appeals in the courts. A rally is scheduled for
July 13, the five-year anniversary of the Detroit newspaper
workers' struggle.
- END -
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