Today marks an emotional and long-awaited milestone for the labor movement in Pittsburgh. Post-Gazette journalists have officially returned to the newsroom after more than three years on strike.
Strikers walked back through the doors shortly before 10 a.m. following a powerful morning rally joined by Starbuck Workers United, the United Steelworkers and supporters from across the labor community. The crowd celebrated and sang “Solidarity Forever” as the strikers walked inside to return to work.
“I’m under no pretense this is going to be easy,” said Andrew Goldstein, Pittsburgh Newspaper Guild President, at the Monday morning rally. “People are people. We are all human. We all have strong feelings on many things, especially this.”
Strikers immediately went to a meeting with Editor Stan Wischnowski.
Steve Mellon, who has been on strike since 2022, told TribeLive.com, “Our tone when we go into that meeting is going to be we got to work together to rebuild trust in the Post-Gazette and make it the best newspaper in Pennsylvania, and that’s going to be our goal. We hope the management will be our partner in that,” Mellon said.
“Journalists hold power to account, especially the boss,” said Jon Schleuss, President of The NewsGuild-CWA, who drove up from Washington, D.C., to stand in solidarity with the strikers this morning.
“Post-Gazette management broke federal law, lost at the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals and now it is time for them to follow the law and treat journalists with respect. We were only able to win because of the tens of thousands of working-class people who stood with us and fought with us. When we fight together, we win together,” Schleuss said in a speech at the morning rally.
For the last three years, striking journalists have continued to do the work serving the community, publishing more than 4,000 stories and 17,000 photos, graphics and illustrations on the strike paper UnionProgress.com.
Today, the strike paper bids a farewell with a heartfelt thank you to the community that supported strikers over the last 1,133 days.