Detroit: News unfit to print. . .or buy. . .or write. . .or haul

by Fred Gaboury and Rich Giovanoni

This article was reprinted from the July 13, 1996 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

DETROIT - One of the things about Tim Wheeler, our ever-enthusiastic editor, is that he's always thinking about something. So when he asked us if we realized that our next issue would be dated July 13, we thought he was making idle conversation. As it turned out, he wasn't.

"Wouldn't it be a good thing if we could get a story on the Detroit newspaper strike for that issue?" he asked. "After all, it began on July 13 last year." Then, barely able to hide a smile, he asked, "Who could we get to write it?"

So that's how we ended up here in Detroit over the Fourth of July weekend, charged with the mission of finding out how the strike is going.

After talking to pickets at plant gates, a minister active in building community support, a teacher who is one of the 300 individuals who have been arrested during direct action protests and a long talk with two rank and file activists and a visit to strike headquarters, we can say this: If the management of the Detroit News, owned by Gannett and of the Detroit Free Press, owned by Knight Ridder, thought they could break the strike, they've got another thought coming.

The problem is they don't seem to realize it - not yet, anyway. And thus the strike, arguably the most important newspaper strike in recent years, is destined to continue.

"Detroit is union town, U.S.A.," Carol O'Neal, one of the leaders of the strike, told us during a long talk in her back yard. "The papers make no effort to hide their goal which is the complete destruction of our unions and, by extension, every union in this town."

O'Neal, who spends a lot of her time giving encouragement to other strikers, is one of the most sought after members of the speaker's bureau. In a voice made hard with anger, she told of a video produced by the newspapers. "They show scabs working at their desks and trucks rolling through our picket lines," she said bitterly. "Then to add insult to injury, the narrator says, 'We're creating a new culture in Detroit - the home of Reuther and Hoffa.' Well, they aren't going to get away with it!"

"We have no choice - they've made their position perfectly clear: They provoked this strike in order to break our unions," Rick Farquharson, O'Neal's husband, added. Then, getting his copy of a speech by Anthony Ridder, CEO of Knight Ridder, to the annual stockholder's meeting, he said, "And they haven't changed a bit."

In his speech Ridder listed three conditions "on which we will not budge." The papers, he said, would not fire replacement workers, would not force anyone to join a union, and would not "resume featherbedding."

"That doesn't leave us very much room, does it?" Farquharson asked.

Nor was Ridder the first to lay it on the line. Barely six weeks after the strike began, Bob Giles, publisher of the News, told readers of a Florida newspaper that the Detroit strikers would have to "surrender unconditionally and salvage what they can. We are going to to hire a whole new work force and go on without unions," he boasted.

If Ridder and Giles are arrogant, strikers we talked to were equally determined. Strikers like Pat McNamara and Tom Bonomo who, together with Farquharson, were pulling picket duty at the Detroit News printing plant in Sterling Heights, a small suburb north of Detroit, are typical. All three are members of Local 13 of the Graphic Communications International Union and worked in the press room of the Free Press when the strike began.

"If they bust us, they'll see it as a signal that they can win everywhere," he said. "We've had delegations come here from all over the country and from just about every union. Their message is the same - that 'You can't lose here.'"

McNamara was on picket duty the night of September 9, 1995 when the Detroit Newspaper Agency (DNA) used helicopters to airlift copies of their Sunday edition out of the Sterling Heights plant. "They (the aircraft) came in and left without lights so we can't say how many there were but they kept landing and taking off for several hours. It reminded me of what I saw in Vietnam," McNamara said. "It was ugly."

Bonomo sees the strike as a matter of "deep pockets." "They are willing to sacrifice what ever it costs to break the unions. It's money in the bank for them," he said.

And indeed the conglomerate owners of the Detroit papers do have deep pockets. The two monopolies had combined profits of nearly $650 million in 1994, with the two Detroit papers contributing more than $50 million to the pile. Between them, Knight Ridder and Gannett own more than 150 newspapers and other major media outlets in cities across the nation.

W. Kim Heron, managing editor of the Sunday Journal, the union-produced alternative newspaper, told us the loss of advertising revenue coupled with circulation declines have cost the News and Free Press more than $250 million since the strike began.

The strike began officially on July 13, 1995, when some 2,500 workers, members of six local unions representing reporters, printers and delivery drivers, were forced to strike when the DNA refused to continue negotiations and moved to impose its "last, best and final offer" on the unions.

The DNA was formed in the early '90s when the Detroit papers entered into a Joint Operating Agreement (JOA). Under its terms, approved by the Justice Department, the two papers would continue to publish separate papers but would be allowed to effectively consolidate all but their editorial departments into a joint venture. The DNA also became the negotiating umbrella for the two papers.

Although July 13 marks the official start of the strike, many of those with whom we talked said the DNA began planning its strategy as far back as April 30, 1992 when the agency asked the Justice Department to amend the JOA and allow the papers to publish a daily joint edition of the two papers in the event of a strike.

Ironically, the previous contract between the DNA and Metropolitan Council of Newspaper Unions expired on that date, leading many observers to believe that the DNA was willing to force a strike at that time. "That may or may not have been the case in 1992 but they certainly didn't hesitate this time," April Smith, a Detroit school teacher, said.

Since paid advertising is an indispensable component of the bottom line of a newspaper, community support is an indispensable ingredient for winning a newspaper strike. Readers must be persuaded to cancel their subs, vendors to quit selling and advertisers to discontinue their ads.

Although numbers are hard to come by, union sources report that the two papers have lost more than 700,000 Sunday readers and internal company documents show that paid home delivery circulation in the Detroit Metropolitan Area has declined by as much as 60 percent since July 1995 and nearly 1,500 advertisers, including 130 auto dealers, no longer advertise in the metropolitan papers.

When will it end? No one we talked to would venture a guess. Before the strike began, Bob Andrews, a printer at the News, thought it would all be over by April. "I was wrong about that," he said. "So I no longer say when except to say that we'll be there one day longer than the DNA. As Yogi Berra said, 'It ain't over 'til its over' - and it's not over yet!"

Yogi was right and so is Andrews and the others we talked to. Come to think about it, it wasn't the worst Fourth of July we ever spent.

Teacher's lesson in solidarity leads to picket-line arrest

April Smith is one of the more than 300 civic, union and community leaders who have been arrested for participating in non-violent civil disobedience during the Detroit newspaper strike. She said she decided to participate because the anti-labor attack is directed against all unions.

"We can't sit back and say that it's not our concern, that it doesn't affect us. I was arrested in an effort to draw public attention to the strike and to protest police brutality against strikers by police in Sterling Heights."

Smith, who teaches math to elementary school students thinks the newspaper strike is particularly important because its against the media. "They have never given unions a break when it comes to their stories and they've supported every anti-union law in the state. As for teachers, the legislature has placed severe limits on what we can negotiate about. They've also passed a law where individual teachers can be fined in the event of a strike," she said.

When asked what can be done by those who live outside the Detroit area, Smith said that Gannett publishes a large number of papers, including USA Today. "The AFL-CIO has launched a consumer boycott against Gannett and Knight Ridder and given the fact that USA Today is everywhere, then everyone, no matter where they live, can participate."

Smith said an effective boycott means "more than not buying. In the case of USA Today it means getting racks off the streets and out of hotel lobbies - that kind of things."

      - Rich Giovanoni

Pastor sees strike support as solution to corporate brutality

One would be surprised if the 47-year-old Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellermann had not gotten involved in the Detroit newspaper strike. And, after talking to him for a while, one would be shocked if he had not been arrested

Wylie-Kellermann said he came to strike from a "deep commitment to non-violence," community activism and anti-war activity. "I've been busted 50 or 60 times and served jail sentences of up to 50 days," he said as he sat with his 10-year-old daughter Lydia.

Kellerman said the brutality of the police in Sterling Heights made him ask how he as a clergyman could bring non-violent means to the strike. "I was one of the first members of Readers United, a group that includes ministers, civic and political leaders that came together soon after the strike began. "We see outselves as an independent voice in the strike based on our conviction that the community has a stake in the strike."

Kellermann was firm about the role of support organizations in a strike. They can only support - they can't lead and shouldn't try. Yes, we need to build support in the community but unions and union members win strikes"

Before we left, Lydia showed me the "Way Cool Kid" button given her by City Council President Maryann Mahaffey. "What does it mean?" I asked.

"If you have to ask, you're not way cool," she answered.

       - Fred Gaboury