PITTSBURGH – On Tuesday the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals rejected two attempts by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PG) to evade its obligation to provide editorial workers the health care plan it illegally tore away from members of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh (TNG-CWA Local 38061) in 2020.
Last month the same court ordered the PG to restore that health care to all Guild bargaining unit employees. The order includes workers who crossed the picket line to work for the PG during the journalists’ more than two-and-a-half-year strike. The PG appealed this ruling on two fronts. On March 27, the PG asked the court for permission to deny the higher-quality, yet cheaper, health care plan to workers who crossed the picket line and only restore it for strikers. On April 7, the PG asked to have the entire injunction case reheard.
Both attempts failed on Tuesday. The Third Circuit Court panel had the opportunity to offer an explanation for a response on petitions for rehearing when judges find a party to be asking compelling legal questions. The judges chose not to respond to the PG.
“The Post-Gazette’s attempts to evade its responsibility have exhausted the courts and exhausted every legal delay tactic, while our strikers’ determination and solidarity have only grown,” said Zack Tanner, president of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh-CWA Local 38061. “The Post-Gazette must immediately restore our health care for every member of our bargaining unit or risk the consequences of being in contempt of court. Today is a clear signal that it is time for the Post-Gazette to settle the strike by restoring the terms of our union contract before the courts take further action against the company’s lawless mistreatment of dedicated journalists.”
The striking newsroom workers are still fighting for their full strike demands: dignified health care and the restoration of their union contract, including paid time off, wages, employees having a guaranteed work week, and the right to question company discipline, among other issues. Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh members have struck since October of 2022 for these demands.
In 2020, the company illegally and unilaterally tore up the editorial workers’ union contract, claiming they had bargained to an impasse. Both an administrative law judge and the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C., ruled that the company broke federal labor law in this instance, in addition to bargaining in bad faith and illegally surveilling its workers.
The Board ordered the PG to pay back workers for all the wage and vacation reductions and increased health care costs it forced onto workers in 2020, in addition to restoring all the other bargained rights it tore up five years ago. The Third Circuit Court is set to rule on enforcement of that full order.
While injunctions, particularly from a Circuit Court are rare, the granting of enforcement orders at that level is comparatively common.