National Labor Relations Board files federal injunction against Post-Gazette

By Patrick Damp

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    PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (KDKA) — The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is now facing a federal injunction for violating workers’ rights in what has become the nation’s longest-running strike.

Striking Post-Gazette employees gathered on the North Shore on Thursday afternoon to celebrate after the National Labor Relations Board filed the injunction.

Should the injunction be approved, the Post-Gazette management would be forced to pay the workers’ healthcare costs, return to the agreements of their previously violated union contract, and force the newspaper to resume bargaining with the union.

“Being on strike for 22 months, it’s a difficult procedure for a lot of people,” said striking PG photographer Steve Mellon. “That’s 22 months without paychecks, 22 months without your work support or your identity as a journalist, like for me as a newspaper photographer, without that identity. 22 months of telling your family, the last two years, telling your family, ‘Look, we’ve gotta change our vacation plans.'”

The National Labor Relations Board said it’s won nearly 75 percent of its injunction cases since 2012.

Earlier this year, the NLRB announced its intentions to file an injunction against the paper, saying at the time, “Employers cannot be allowed to actively harm workers. The Post-Gazette could settle this and limit its liability at any time. The NewsGuild-CWA will continue to fight for journalists and media workers in Pittsburgh and across the continent.”

In January of last year, a National Labor Relations Board judge ordered the Post-Gazette back to the bargaining table saying the newspaper had been bargaining in bad faith since 2019 and prematurely declared an impasse.

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