The author was a reporter for the Detroit News and served as president and administrative officer for the Newspaper Guild Local 22. This article first appeared in the magazine, Michigh Labor History Society. It is being republished with permission.
By Lou Mleczko
On July 13th, organized labor will mark the 30 th anniversary of the Detroit Newspaper Strike/Lockout, the longest and one of the most bitter labor battles in the history of the American newspaper industry.
On that date, 2,500 union workers at the Detroit News, Detroit Free Press and the Detroit Newspaper Agency went on strike against two of the largest newspaper chains in the country---Gannett and Knight Ridder.
The six unions representing the strikers were: Teamsters Local 372 and Local 2040, representing truck drivers, district managers and mailers; Newspaper Guild of Detroit, Local 22, representing editorial employees at the Free Press, editorial and maintenance employees of The News;
Pressmen Local 13-N, representing press operators for the two papers; Detroit Typographical Union Local 18, representing type setters and page designers; and Local 289-M, representing paper and plate handlers.
Gannett, which purchased the News in 1986, was the largest newspaper chain in the country at the time with 78 papers including USA Today, seven TV stations, and 14 radio stations. Gannett also owned most of the outdoor billboards in Southeast Michigan.
Knight Ridder, with 35 dailies in mostly large cities like Miami, Philadelphia, Detroit, Denver and San Jose, was the largest newspaper chain in the country by paid circulation. Both were publicly owned, and their stocks were traded on Wall Street. Both companies regularly posted annual net profits of 15% and 16%.
Off duty Sterling Heights police Lt. Jack Severance kicks a striking newspaper worker while uniformed officers hold him down. (Photo: Daymon Hartley)
Despite winning wage freezes in the 1992 contract negotiations, the two papers demanded greater profits in Detroit by seeking fewer employees and major changes in work rules.
In February 1995, management proposed contract changes such as fewer press operators and district managers and a new and subjective merit pay system for editorial employees, which would replace the minimum pay rates negotiated by the six unions. Management also wanted to drop fully paid health and dental insurance, which the unions won in exchange for smaller wage hikes in earlier contracts.
As talks stalled over these issues, the papers imported hundreds of scab laborers and private security guards and housed them in area hotels. Union Contracts were set to expire June 30th. In April, national union leaders of the six union locals convened a day-long meeting in Detroit and warned them that a strike was imminent. The leaders said that with scab replacements the union employees couldn’t effectively stop the two papers from publishing, so they directed the locals to develop an advertising and circulation boycott.
The national AFL-CIO brought in George Curtin to develop an advertising and circulation campaign, recruiting volunteers from the six locals to begin contacting local businesses and organizations that a major labor dispute was looming at the News and Free Press.
On July 1st , Gannett declared an impasse in negotiations and unilaterally implemented its merit pay plan on News editorial employees. In response, the six local unions, which bargained under the name Metro Council of Newspaper Unions, set a July 13 th strike deadline.
Daily bargaining talks ensued but management refused to budge from initial contract proposals. In a last-ditch effort to avoid a strike, Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer, acting as a mediator, had both parties at his City Hall office trying to reach a settlement.
Despite his best efforts, Archer couldn’t convince newspaper management to change any of its positions in exchange for the unions postponing its strike deadline. Talks ended and the strike was on.
The six unions promptly filed Unfair Labor Practice Charges against the papers with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) as scabs manned the production operations at the Sterling Heights Printing Plant. A second printing plant in downtown Detroit was temporarily closed.
Union members were dispatched to picket at the offices of the Free Press and News in downtown Detroit as well as at the two printing plants, a dozen Distribution Centers and various editorial bureaus.
Almost immediately, violence broke out at several sites. Private security guards and scabs clashed with pickets as non-union workers crossed picket lines and drove delivery trucks throughout the metro area.
Meanwhile, union workers were contacting local businesses and subscribers to stop doing business with the two Detroit papers. Thousands of lawn signs were distributed that said, “No News or Free Press wanted here.”
The author, Lou Mleczko
The two papers spent an estimated $40 million hiring scabs and private security, according to author Chris Rhomberg in his book “The Broken Table.” More than $1 million was paid to the Sterling Heights Police Department to stop pickets from blocking access to the sprawling printing plant.
Despite the involvement of federal and state mediators, the strike continued, and the circulation/advertising boycott was hitting the two newspapers hard. In the first six months of the strike, Rhomberg estimated $100 million in newspaper losses and a one-third decline in newspaper advertising. In total, 1,395 advertisers pulled out of the papers but 715 remained.
However, the Free Press and News wouldn’t budge at the bargaining table as Gannett and Knight Ridder poured tens of millions of dollars into Detroit from its other operations nationally.
In the fall of 1995, Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellerman and his wife Jeanie Wylie Kellerman, editor of The Witness, helped organize other community leaders to form Readers United—an organization that sought public support for the six striking unions.
A strike newspaper was proposed. A number of national unions, under the auspices of the AFL-CIO, donated money to start such a publication that would serve as a vehicle for local news and advertising.
In November, the first edition of The Detroit Sunday Journal was launched with a circulation of more than 300,000 copies. Striking Guild members from the News and Free Press provided editorial copy and photos while production union strikers were trained to sell advertising and to help with distribution of the alternative weekly.
The Free Press and News had sent letters to strikers warning they would be permanently replaced unless they returned to work immediately. Dozens of other strikers were fired by the papers for alleged misbehavior on the picket lines.
In response to the continued management belligerence to its striking employees, religious leaders stepped up and formed the Interfaith Committee on Worker Justice. More than 100 pastors, rabbis, Religious Sisters and Muslim clerics condemned the use of scabs and the imposition of permanent replacement firings of union workers.
Roman Catholic Cardinal Adam Maida and Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton condemned the actions of the two dailies as did other religious leaders like Rabbi Ernst Conrad, Episcopal Bishop H. Coleman McGehee and Rev. Robert Smith of New Bethel Baptist Church.
Community leaders also rallied to support the strikers. U.S. Reps. John Conyers, David Bonior, Detroit Council President Maryann Mahaffey, Rev. Ed Rowe of Central United Methodist Church and Martin Luther King III all participated in various public rallies.
In total, 288 community leaders were arrested for sit down demonstrations at the properties of the two newspapers.
Meanwhile, under the Council of Unions auspices a community food and prescription drug bank were created to provide aid to strikers. The UAW made repeated financial donations to the strikers as well as providing furniture and other office supplies for the strike headquarters and for the Sunday Journal.
UAW President Steve Yokich was instrumental in providing financial and in-kind aid to the strikers. On several occasions, he brought hundreds of union officers to Detroit to host rallies in front of the The News Building downtown.
However, as the strike dragged on through 1996, more than 200 strikers eventually crossed union picket lines. Many others were forced to quit strike activity and find work elsewhere. Various court orders restricted the number of pickets at any one site. In response, the UAW trained strikers in nonviolent direct-action tactics like leafletting in front of the homes of newspaper executives, and informational picketing of businesses advertising in the scab papers.
With the help of the national AFL-CIO, informational picketing spread to other states as a selected group of strikers leafletted at the headquarters of newspapers like Knight Ridder’s Miami Herald and at the stockholders meeting of Gannett in Washington D.C.
Alas, all these efforts failed to bring the publishers back to the bargaining table.
On Feb. 14, 1997, the Council of Unions ended its strike. Management would only take back strikers to fill existing job openings. Scabs and permanent replacements remained in their positions. The unions accused the publishers of locking out union strikers from their jobs at the News and Free Press.
The idea for a large union rally in Detroit, which was started by a handful of strikers, eventually culminated June 19-21 with a massive display of solidarity as more than 100,000 union members from across the country descended on the Motor City for a march/rally called Action Motown 97.
One day before Action Motown 97, the NLRB in Detroit ruled against the newspapers saying they committed unfair labor practices and ordered the papers to take back all strikers with full back pay and benefits.
However, the papers wouldn’t budge and filed an appeal in federal Court in Washington D.C. challenging the NLRB decision.
On July 7, 2000, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Laurence Silberman, James Buckley and David Sentelle—three conservative judges appointed by President Ronald Reagan-overruled the NLRB and said the Detroit labor battle wasn’t an Unfair Labor Practices Strike.
Instead, it was just an economic dispute.
There would be no back pay and scabs wouldn’t be forced out of the News and Free Press. Despite the crushing legal defeat, the two newspapers, reeling from substantial circulation and advertising losses, agreed to resume contract talks with the six unions.
By December 2000, new three-year contracts were negotiated with the unions, which featured across-the-board pay increases and maintaining existing defined benefit pension plans. Fully paid comprehensive health insurance was continued. However, the unions were forced to accept open shop language in their contracts.
Both sides suffered huge financial and personal losses. It was estimated the two newspapers lost at least $250 million. Gannett and Knight Ridder had failed in their effort to become union free and were forced to bargain new agreements with their union workforce.
Knight Ridder and Gannett never recovered from the circulation and advertising losses which they absorbed in their five-year battle with the unions.
In 2005, Knight Ridder was broken up and its papers sold to other media groups. Gannett subsequently purchased the Free Press and sold The News to the Media News Group.
Today, the unions still have contracts with the Free Press and News. This wouldn’t have happened without the brave actions by thousands of union members and myriad acts of solidarity by members of the metro Detroit community.
