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-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted
from the July 18, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
On July 13 workers at the Detroit newspapers will mark one year on strike. They'll do it the fighting way--with a mass demonstration against the union-busting bosses.
Two thousand workers from six unions--two Teamsters locals, two Graphics Communications locals, the Typographers and the Newspaper Guild--have been on strike against the Detroit News, Detroit Free Press and the newspapers' joint owners. Although it's been a year--a tough year up against a united ruling class--they continue to hold strong.
Few workers have crossed the picket lines since about 300 Newspaper Guild members crossed shortly after the strike began. One year into this walkout, there is no discernible mood of giving up or giving in.
On the contrary, these workers say they want to fight. And many say they think they could win this fight, if they could raise the struggle tactics up a notch or two.
Publicly, the bosses still say they intend to maintain the scab work force and essentially bust the unions. But strikers say this battle is by no means over.
The strike has cost millions of dollars in losses for Gannett and Knight-Ridder, the parent companies that co-own the newspapers through a joint operating agreement. Management admits to $250 million in lost earnings as a result of the strike.
Gannett and Knight-Ridder continue to publish scab
versions of the Free Press and News. But circulation is way down compared to pre-strike levels.
The newspapers have refused to issue audited circulation figures. They claim a combined paid circulation of about 600,000 on weekdays and about 800,000 on Sundays. That would be a 30-percent drop in circulation.
The striking unions, however, say paid circulation is
lower: 409,000 on weekdays and 564,000 on Sundays, based on documents showing a huge backlog of unpaid subscriber bills.
People in the printing plant report that only 152,000 copies of the Detroit News are printed on weekdays. That's about one-quarter of the number printed a decade ago.
Many analysts predict that the Detroit News will fold.
The Detroit Sunday Journal, a weekly newspaper published by the strikers, comes out every Sunday. It now has the second-highest circulation of any Sunday newspaper in Michigan.
And it provides a significant reminder, every week, of the strikers' determination to resist the bosses' strike breaking.
The workers continue to show their steadfastness in other ways, too. People picket the homes of scabs and bosses. They pass out leaflets urging advertisers to boycott the scab papers. They distribute leaflets raising consciousness about the strike at public events.
Community support also remains strong. "No Scab Paper" lawn signs are displayed at tens of thousands of homes all around the metropolitan area. Local unions and community groups organize benefits for the strikers.
Over 300 union, religious and community supporters have been arrested in civil-disobedience actions at the Detroit News organized by a group called Readers United.
African American community leaders such as the Rev. Robert Smith and U.S. Rep. John Conyers have organized and led rallies and weekly actions to discourage scab vending in neighborhood stores.
However, many strikers and their supporters have become increasingly frustrated by the solidarity that is not being tapped to really aid the struggle. Leaders of the unions have not called the kind of mass actions that could galvanize the entire labor movement, shut down the newspapers and bring the strike to a head.
During the winter, thousands of strikers and supporters signed petitions urging AFL-CIO President John Sweeney to call a national labor march in Detroit in support of the newspaper strike. The Metro Detroit AFL-CIO passed a resolution supporting such an action.
In May, about 400 workers--half of them newspaper strikers--attended the AFL-CIO's living-wage hearing here. The entire crowd applauded when someone asked Sweeney when the march would be called. There was no answer.
In June, about 75 strikers and supporters attended a meeting of the Labor Crisis Support Committee, set up by the AFL-CIO to help the strikers, to press for militant mass action and a national march. Bob Knox, speaking for the AFLCIO leadership, answered that the strike is winning, that the newspapers are losing money, and that the workers just need to wait the companies out.
The discussion at that meeting mirrored a debate over tactics that has gone on since the strike began. The AFL-CIO and union leadership seem to view the strike narrowly. They say that if the walkout costs Gannett and Knight-Ridder enough money the bosses will be forced to come to the table and settle.
The union leaders have said they will rely on the courts and the National Labor Relations Board to mete out justice. That approach, combined with the unions' fear of big fines for breaking the 10-picket-limit injunction at the North plant, has paralyzed the leadership--and brought mass action of the kind seen last September and October to a standstill.
On the other hand, many rank-and-file strikers and independent activists point out that Gannett and KnightRidder are huge multinational conglomerates with billions of dollars in assets. For these corporations, the Detroit strike is a key component in a national strategy of union busting, wage and job cuts, and continued restructuring in the newspaper and media industries.
The capitalists are ready to lose, and have already lost, hundreds of millions of dollars in the short haul--to set the stage for record profits in the future. To fight against these rich corporations and win the newspaper strike, therefore, it will be necessary to mobilize the entire labor movement in Detroit and nationwide.
That could turn the strike into a class battle that would scare the entire corporate elite and force them to back off this attack.
Precisely such a fighting approach first brought the strike into the national spotlight. On Labor Day weekend last year, and on the following weekend as well, thousands of strikers and supporters from many unions fought cops and scabs for hours.
They shut down the Sterling Heights printing plant, halting production and distribution of the Sunday newspapers.
At that time there was even support within sections of the labor movement for calling a one-day general strike in solidarity with the newspaper workers.
After a court issued an injunction against picketing at the Sterling Heights plant, the AFL-CIO and newspaper union leadership backed off efforts to shut down the printing plant. Every Saturday night for the next three months, however, about 1,000 workers continued to gather at distribution centers, confronting scabs and cops for hours while shutting down or at least delaying distribution of the Sunday newspapers.
Beginning in November, union leaders called off these actions. They essentially disbanded the Labor Community Coalition that had spearheaded them.
They decided to put the entire emphasis of the strike on leafleting businesses for an advertiser boycott. This approach has been insufficient to force the corporations back to the bargaining table.
Now more active elements among the rank and file show signs of organizing themselves to push the strike back into the kind of militant direction that can win.
When word went out that the AFL-CIO leadership wasn't calling a demonstration to mark one year on strike, these workers formed a group called the July 13th Coalition--and announced a demonstration themselves.
They called on strikers and supporters to gather at the Detroit News and then proceed in a caravan to the Sterling Heights printing plant. This call proved so popular that the leadership of the Council of Newspaper Unions and the AFL-CIO canceled plans for a picnic that day and instead endorsed the demonstration.
The organizers view this demonstration as a springboard to bigger and more militant demonstrations in the future. They believe the Detroit newspaper strike can be won.
Strikers are holding strong. Every union hall in Detroit proudly displays a "No Scab Papers" sign. The rank and file from every union--especially the UAW, now in contract talks with the Big Three--feel this strike and appreciate its significance.
Thousands have acted to defend their sister and brother strikers and would no doubt do it again if called on. With auto contracts expiring this fall, the auto workers themselves might be demonstrating--over the issue of downsizing, that will dominate the talks.
Solidarity among all the workers now could win the newspaper strike, influence the direction of the auto talks and raise the level of the whole working-class struggle.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@wwpublish.com. For subscription info send message to: ww-info@wwpublish.com. Web: http://www.workers.org)