![]() It must also be said that in some ways the three international unions involved-the Teamsters, CWA, and GCIU-provided more aid to this strike than unions usually do. But both parent companies were willing to sustain big losses in order to bust unions in Detroit-once considered labor’s stronghold-while remaining profitable elsewhere. If this had been a purely local struggle, the unions’ impressive circulation and advertising boycotts would have brought the papers to the table. The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press are only small pieces of two corporate empires, Gannett and Knight-Ridder, that are largely non-union. What would it have taken to win this strike? First, any criticism of the blunders of the Detroit unions must be tempered by the fact that, no matter what they did, this would have been a tough fight to win. They just never got the call.” CORPORATE EMPIRES “The local labor movement was prepared to provide assistance. “There’s no doubt the energy was there,” said one union insider. The troops had been there, but they were sent home. And all the unions’ subsequent efforts never re-created the sense of crisis and unity-nor effectiveness-that existed outside the plant gates on those nights in 1995. The newspapers, which paid for riot training and overtime for the Sterling Heights police, never missed a day of publication. Management used helicopters to airlift token newspapers past the melee.Īfter that, the company got an injunction that limited picketing. The next Saturday night, strikers and supporters were back again, facing the tear gas and billy clubs of the Sterling Heights police. The trucks were blocked, and not many copies of the Sunday edition ever got out. It was a display of solidarity not seen in Detroit in decades.Įven with no organized leadership, a big group stayed out all night, standing in the driveway. UAW members, in particular, who had undergone 15 years of downsizing and speed-up with little resistance, were out in force, ready for a fight on behalf of fellow union members they’d barely heard of before now. Seven weeks into the strike, on a Saturday evening, thousands of strikers and supporters massed at the gates of the Sterling Heights printing plant, determined to prevent scab trucks from exiting with the lucrative Sunday edition. The decisions that sealed the newspaper workers’ fate were essentially made back in September 1995. That sums it up: drastic action was needed, but union leaders didn’t want to get tickets. “Another old guy says, ‘Why don’t you blockade the plant? Why don’t you take your cars around there, throw the keys away and blockade the son of a bitch?’ I said, ‘Well, the people are going to get ticketed, they don’t want to get tickets.’” You’ve got to stop production, young man, you’ve got to stop production.’ Don’t you know they’re going to get rough? I don’t know what you people are thinking. Don’t you understand? They are trying to destroy what we built. One old guy came up and says, ‘I was at Briggs. John said: “Black people and white people were lining up to buy the Sunday Journal. Not because people didn’t want to buy it, but because he couldn’t answer certain questions. At a party recently, John Joslin, an IBEW member and tireless strike supporter, related how frustrating it had been to hawk the strikers’ newspaper, the Sunday Journal. Fired workers are still fired, awaiting their individual days in court.ĭetroiters have lived this strike for five and a half years, on the picket line, at ox roasts, on the sidewalk in front of executives’ homes. Management won.Īll six locals have voted for contracts that include “merit pay” and the open shop. For more details, see "Subscription Support" in the app's settings for more details and customer service contact information.Nearly one thousand newspaper workers in Seattle walked off the job November 21 after The Detroit newspaper strike is over. Subscriptions are charged to your Google Play account at confirmation of purchase and automatically renew each month or year, unless turned off in your Google Play account settings at least 24 hours before the end of the current period.This app is free to download and all users can access a sampling of free articles every month.Customize your experience by saving your favorite stories, adjusting text size, using night mode, or reading offline.Get breaking news, sports scores, and weather alerts with real-time notifications tailored to your interests. ![]() Enjoy a streamlined, fast-loading experience that makes it easy to view the stories, photos, and videos that matter to you.Access all of our in-depth journalism, including things to do around town, sports coverage from high school to the pros, and much more.From critically acclaimed storytelling to powerful photography to engaging videos - the Detroit Free Press app delivers the local news that matters most to your community.
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