This article was reprinted from the September 16, 1995 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.
DETROIT -- The good news here is that more than a quarter million readers have canceled their subscriptions to the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press in solidarity with the 2,500 newspaper workers who have been on strike against both papers since July 13.
George Curtain, an AFL-CIO representative assigned to the strike, said the dramatic collapse in circulation was an indicator of widespread public support of the strikers.
"There is no assurance these circulation losses will be recouped after the strike," he said, adding that the Detroit papers could "suffer the fate of the New York Daily News that lost more than 400,000 readers when it provoked a strike a few years ago."
Michele Artt, a shop steward for the Detroit Teachers Union, credits a coalition of religious, civil rights and other community organizations for putting a crimp in the circulation numbers. "I think everyone should cancel their subs to these scab papers," she told the World when interviewed on the picket line last Saturday.
Shavonne Terpina, the Detroit AFL-CIO staff representative who coordinates the activities of the Labor, Community and Religious Coalition in Support of the Newspaper Strike, told the World their major activity was distributing leaflets in front of retail outlets who continue to advertise in the scab papers. "We pass out leaflets explaining the issues of the strike and urge shoppers to take their business elsewhere. Of course," she added, "we encourage people to cancel their subscriptions."
The defection of readers came as the Metropolitan Council of Newspaper Unions launched a campaign of mass picketing on Saturday nights at the Sterling Heights printing plant owned by the Detroit News Agency (DNA) that prints both papers.
"We've been out for more than two months," Norman Sinclair, an investigative reporter for the News, told the World. "We went out together and we'll go back together," he said, dismissing claims by the DNA that union members were jumping ship or that scab-produced newspapers could gain public acceptance in the nation's most unionized city.
Sinclair laughed as he described events at the print shop the night of Sept. 9. "We held them up for the second Saturday in a row," he said, gleefully relating the action that succeeded in disrupting distribution.
When pickets held off attempts by Sterling Heights police to clear a path for loaded trucks to leave the plant, the DNA brought in helicopters in a futile attempt to move the papers.
Sinclair, who spent most of the night at the plant, described the events. "They had to unload the papers from a truck, load them into the helicopters, take them somewhere else and reverse the process." He said it took at least an hour for a round trip and doubts if it was possible to load even a dozen trucks.
Randy, a member of Teamster Local 372, is a district manager, responsible for overseeing delivery of the papers. He agreed with Sinclair:
"They were using five-passenger choppers and it took at least three trips to fill the smaller trucks." He said a normal million-copy Saturday night press run required more than 100 trucks.
Ed Scribner, president of the Detroit Metropolitan Central Labor Council, likened the airborne rescue attempt to delivering papers by pony express. "If that's the new way to deliver newspapers, God bless them," he told the crowd over a bullhorn.
However, neither Sinclair or Randy laughed when they told of a half-dozen scab-driven trucks ramming their way through the pickets early Sunday morning. Sinclair said several pickets were injured. "It's a wonder no one was killed," he added, describing the assault a "criminal act" by the DNA.
Sinclair said the police did nothing despite the fact that the speeding trucks turned into the street so fast that one nearly tipped over. "The whole thing was a phony," he said. "The loading door on one of the trucks was open and we could see there were no papers inside."
He said another truck ran up on the curb and nearly tipped over. "Two wheels left the ground -- if it had been loaded with papers it would have tipped over."
Police officials have invited the public to come forward with the names of the drivers of the trucks. "It's a fraud," Artt said, her voice hard with anger. "It was their job to arrest them right then and there when they ran down pickets. Besides, the company knows who was driving those trucks."
Artt said the mass picket lines and militant resistance shown by the pickets "is a reflection of a new mood in the labor movement. Detroit is a union town and we intend to keep it that way."
Sinclair said the assault on the picket line was a provocation meant to buttress the publishers' demand for a court order limiting pickets to six per gate.
In July the National Labor Relations Board charged the DNA with an unfair labor practice for reneging on an earlier agreement to participate in joint bargaining with the six local unions that represent workers at the two metropolitan papers.
In addition to stepped-up picket line activity, the Metropolitan Council of Newspaper Unions has launched a campaign aimed at forcing the "Sleazy Six" retail chains to withdraw their advertising from the struck papers. The campaign, announced by Richard Trumka, chair of the AFL-CIO Strategic Approaches Committee, has targeted J.C. Penney, Montgomery Ward, Lord and Taylor, Home Depot, Dayton Hudson and Target.
The strike was provoked when the DNA stonewalled at the bargaining table while recruiting and training scabs while "negotiations" dragged on. Strikers have told the World that DNA demands, if accepted, would reduce the unions involved to little more than dues collection agencies.
-- Helen Winter and Mark Walton contributed to this article.
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